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No. 9S7 b 20 Oeio.'tis. 





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THE DEAD SECEET 


x^• 


r 


BY y 



WILKIE COLLINS 


AUTHOR OF 

\ 


“the moonstone,” “the new magdauen,” “the 

GUILTY RIVER,” ETC., ETC. 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street 


WILKIE COLLINS’S WORKS 

CONTAINED IN LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 

PRICE, 

NO. 

8 Tlie Moonstone, Part I, . • • • • • * 

9 The Moonstone, Part II, . . • • • • 

24 The New Magdalen, 

87 Heart and Science, • • 

418 “I Say No;” or, The Love-Letter Answered, . • 20c. 

437 Tales of Two Idle Apprentices. Dickens and Collins, '15c. 

683 The Ghost’s Touch, 

686 My Lady’s Money, . 

722 The Evil Genius, . - 

839 The Guilty River, . , . . • • - 




THE DEAD SECRET 


BY WILKIE COLLINS. 


BOOK L 


CHAPTER I. 

THE TWENTY-THIRD OF AUGUST, 1829. 

“ Will she last out the night, I wonder?” 

“ Look at the clock, Mathew.” 

“Ten minutes past twelve! She has lasted the night 
out. She has lived, Robert, to see ten minutes of the new 
day.” 

These words were spoken in the kitchen of a large coun 
try-house situated on the west coast of Cornwall. The 
speakers were two of the men-servants composing the es- 
tablishment of Captain Treverton, an officer in the navy, 
and the eldest male representative of an old Cornish family. 
Both the servants communicated with each other restrain- 
edly, in whispers — sitting close together, and looking round 
expectantly toward the door whenever the talk flagged be- 
tween them. 

“It’s an awful thing,” said the elder of the men, “for 
us two to be alone here, at this dark time, counting out 
the minutes that our mistress has left to live!” 

“ Robert,” said the other, “ you have been in the service 
. here since you were a boy — did you ever hear that our mis- 
tress was a pla;^-actress when our master married her?” 

“ How came you to know that?’' inquired the elder serv- 
ant, sharply. 

“ Hush!” cried the other, rising quickly from his chair. 

A bell rang in the passage outside. 

“ Is that for one of us?” asked Mathew. 

“ Can’t you tell, by the sound, which is which of those 
bells yet?” exclaimed Robert, contemptuously. “ That bell 
is for Sarah Leeson. Go out into the passage and look.” 


i 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


The younger servant took a candle and obeyed. When 
lie opened the kitchen-door, a long row of bells" met his eye 
on the wall opposite. Above each of them was painted, in 
neat black letters, the distinguishing title of the servant 
whom it was specially intended to summon, the row of 
letters began with housekeeper and butler, and ended with 
kitchen-maid and footman’s boy. 

Looking along the bells, Mathew easily discovered that 
one of them was still in motion. Above it were the words 
lady’s-maid. Observing this, he passed quickly along the 
passage, and knocked at an old-fashioned oak door at the 
end of it. No answer being given, he opened the door and 
looked into the room. It was dark and empty. 

“ Sarah is not in the housekeeper’s room,” said Mathew, 
returning to his fellow- servant in the kitchen. 

“She is gone to her own room, then,” rejoined the 
other. ” Go up and tell her that she is wanted by her mis- 
tress.” 

The bell rang again as Mathew went out. 

“Quick! — quick!” cried Kobert. “Tell her she is 
wanted directly. Wanted,” he continued to himself, in 
lower tones, “perhaps for the last time!” 

Mathew ascended three flights of stairs— passed half-way 
down a long, arched gallery — and knocked at another old- 
fashioned oak door. This time the signal was answered. 
A low, clear, sweet voice, inside the room, inquired who 
was waiting without. In a few hasty words Mathew told 
his errand. Before he had done speaking the door was 
quietly and quickly opened, and Sarah Leeson confronted 
him on the threshold, with her candle in her hand. 

Not tall, not handsome, not in her first youth— shy and 
irresolute in manner— simple in dress to the utmost limits 
of plainness — the lady’s-maid, in spite of all these disad- 
vantages, was a woman whom it was impossible to look at 
without a feeling of curiosity, if not of interest. Few men, 
at first sight of her, could have resisted the desire to find 
out who she was ; few would have been satisfied with re- 
^jeiving for answer, she is Mrs. Treverton’s maid; few 
would have refrained from the attempt to extract some se- 
f^ret information for themselves from her face and manner ; 
and none, not even the most patient and practiced of ob- 
servers, could have succeeded in discovering more than 
that she must have passed through the ordeal of some 
great suffering at some former period of her life. Much in 
her manner, and more in her face, said plainly and sadly : 
I am the wreck of something that you might once have 
liked to see; a wreck that can never be repaired — that 
must drift on through life unnoticed, unguided, unpitied— 
drift till the fatal shore is touched, and the waves of time 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


5 


have swallowed up these broken relics of me forever. This 
was the story that was told in Sarah Leeson^s face— -this, 
and no more. 

No two men interpreting that story for themselves, would 
probably have agreed on the nature of the suffering which 
this woman had undergone. It was hard to say, at the 
outset, whether the past pain that had set its ineffaceable 
mark on her had been pain of the body or pain of the mind. 
But whatever the nature of the affliction she had suffered, 
the traces it had left were deeply and strikingly visible in 
every part of her face. 

Her *cheeks had lost their roundness and their natural 
color; her lips, singularly flexible in movement and deli- 
cate in form, had faded to an unhealthy paleness; her eyes, 
large and black and overshadowed by unusually thick 
lashes, had contracted an anxious, startled look, which 
never left them, and which piteously expressed the painful 
acuteness of her sensibility, the inherent timidity of her 
disposition. So far, the marks which sorrow or sickness 
had set on her were the marks common to most victims of 
mental or physical suffering. The one extraordinary per- 
sonal deterioration which she had undergone consisted in 
the unnatural change that had passed over the color of her 
hair. It was as thick and soft, it grew as gracefully, as 
the hair of a young girl ; but it was as gray as the hair of 
an old woman. It seemed to contradict, in the most start- 
ling manner, every personal assertion of youth that still 
existed in her face. 

With all its haggardness and paleness, no one could have 
looked at it and supposed for a moment that it was the face 
of an elderly woman. Wan as they might be, there was 
not a wrinkle in her cheeks. Her eyes, viewed apart from 
their prevailing expression of uneasiness and timidity, still 
preserved that bright, clear moisture which is never seen 
in the eyes of the old. The skin about her temples was as 
delicately smooth as the skin of a child. These and other 
physical signs which never misled, showed that she was 
still, as to years, in the very prime of her life. Sickly and 
sorrow-stricken as she was, she looked, from the eyes 
downward, a woman who had barely reached thirty years 
of age. From the eyes upward, the effect of her abundant 
gray hair, seen in connection with her face, was not simply 
incongruous — it was absolutely startling; so startling as to 
make it no paradox to say that she would have looked 
most natural, most like herself, if her hair had been dyed. 
In her case, Art would have seemed to be the truth, be- 
cause Nature looked like falsehood. 

What shock had stricken her hair, in the very maturity 
of its luxuriance, with the hue of an unnatural old age? 


6 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


Was it a serious illness, or a dreadful grief, that had turned 
her gray in the prime of her womanhood? That question 
had often been agitated among her fellow -servants, who 
were all struck by the peculiarities of her personal appear- 
ance, and rendered a bit suspicious of her, as well, by an 
inveterate habit that she had of talking to herself. Incmire 
as they might, however, their curiosity was always baffled. 
Nothing more could be discovered than Sarah Leeson was, 
in the common phrase, touchy on the subject of her gray 
hair and her habit of talking to herself, and that Sarah 
Tjeeson’s mistress had long since forbidden every one, from 
her husband downward, to ruffle her maid’s tranquillity by 
inquisitive questions. 

She stood for an instant speechless, on that momentous 
morning of the twenty-third of August, before the servant 
who summoned her to her mistress’ death-bed — the light 
of the candle flaring brightly over her large, startled, black 
e3^es, and the luxuriant, unnatural gray hair above them. 
She stood a moment silent — her hand trembling while she 
held the candlestick, so that the extinguisher lying loose in 
it rattled incessantly— then thanked the servant for calling 
her. The trouble and fear in her voice, as she spoke, 
seemed to add to its sweetness ; the agitation of her manner 
took nothing awaj^ from its habitual gentleness, its delicate, 
winning, feminine restraint. Mathew, who, like the other 
servants, secretly distrusted and disliked her for differing 
from the ordinary pattern of professed ladj^’s maids, was, 
on this particular occasion, so subdued by her manner and 
her tone as she thanked him, that he offered to cany her 
candle for her to the door of her mistress’ bed-chamber. 
She shook her head, and thanked him again, then passed 
before him quickly on her way out of the gallery. 

The room in which Mrs. Treverton laj^ d^ung was on the 
floor beneath. Sarah hesitated twice before she knocked 
at the door. It was opened b^" Captain Treverton. 

The instant she saw her master she started back from 
him. If she had dreaded a blow she could hardly have 
drawn away more suddenly", or with an expression of 
greater alarm. There was nothing in Captain Treverton ’s 
face to warrant the suspicion of ill-treatment, or even of 
harsh words. His countenance was kind, hearty, and 
open; and the tears were still trickling down it which he 
had shed by his wife’s bedside. 

“Go in,” he said, turning away his face. “She does 
not wish the nurse to attend ; she only wishes for you. Call 

me if the doctor ” His voice faltered, and he hurried 

away without attempting to finish his sentence. 

Sarah Leeson, instead of entering her mistress’ room, 
stood looking after her master attentivel^y, with her pale 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


cheeks turned to deatliiy whiteness — wUh an eager, doubt- 
ing, questioning terror in her eyes. Wnen he had disap 
peared round the corner of the gallery, she listened for a 
moment outside the door of the sick-room — whispered 
affrightedly to herself, “Can she have told him?” — then 
opened the door, with a visible effort to recover her self 
control; and, after lingering suspiciously on the threshold 
for a moment, ’went in. 

Mrs. Treverton’s bed-chamber was a large, loft^ room, 
situated in the western front of the house, and consequently 
overlooking the sea-view. The night-light burning by the 
bedside displayed rather than dispelled the darkness in the 
corners of the room. The bed was of the old-fashioned 
pattern, wdth heavy hangings and thick curtains drawn 
all round it. Of the other objects in the chamber, only 
those of the largest and most solid kind were prominent 
enough to be tolerably visible in the dim light. The cabi- 
nets, the wardrobe, the full-length looking-glass, the high- 
backed armchair, these, with the great shapeless bulk of 
the bed itself, towered up heavily and gloomily into view. 
Other objects were fill merged together in the general obscur- 
ity. Through the open window, opened to admit the fresh 
air of the new morning after the sultriness of the August 
night, there poured monotonously into the rodm the dull, 
still, distant roaring of the surf on the sandy coast. All 
outer noises were hushed at that first dark hour of the new 
day. Inside the room thei^ne audible sound was the slow, 
toilsome breathing of the dying woman, raising itself in its 
mortal frailness, awfully and distinctly , even through the 
far thunder- breathing from the bosom of the everlasting 
sea. 

“Mistress,” said Sarah Leeson, standing close to the 
curtains, but not withdrawing them, “ my master has left 
the room, and has sent me here in his place.” 

‘ ‘ Light !— give me more light !’ ’ 

The feebleness of mortal sickness was in the voice ; but 
the accent of the speaker sounded resolute even yet — 
doubly resolute by contrast with the hesitation of the tones 
in which Sarah had spoken. The strong nature of the mis- 
tress and the weak nature of the maid came out, even in 
that short interchange of words spoken through the curtain 
of a death-bed. 

Sarah lighted two candles with a wavering hand— placed 
them hesitatingly on a table by the bedside — waited for a 
moment, looking all round her with suspicious timidity— 
t^en undrew the curtains. 

' The disease of which Mrs. Treverton was dying Avas one 
of the most terrible of all the maladies that afflict human- 
ity, one to which women are especially subject, and one 




THE DEAD SECRET, 


v. liicli undermines life Avithout, in most cases, showing any 
remarkable traces of its corroding progress in the face. No 
uninstructed person, looking at Mrs. Treverton when her 
attendant undrew the bed-curtain, could possibly have im- 
agined that she was past all help that mortal skill could 
offer to her. The slight marks of illness in her face, the 
inevitable changes in the grace and roundness of its out- 
line, were rendered hardly noticeable by the marvelous 
preservation of her complexion in all the light and delicacy 
of its first girlish beauty. There lay her face on the pillow 
—tenderly framed in by the rich lace of her cap, softly 
croAvned by her shining brown hair — to all outAvard appear- 
ance, the face of a beautiful woman recovering from a 
slight illness, or reposing after unusual fatigue. Even 
Sarah Leeson, Avho had watched her all through her mal- 
ady, could hardly believe, as she looked at her mistress, 
that the Gates of Life had closed behind her,, and that the 
beckoning hand of Death was signing to her already from 
the Gates of the Grave, 

Some dog’s-eared books in paper coA^ers lay on the coun- 
terpane of the bed. As soon as the curtain AA^as draAvn 
aside Mrs. Treverton ordered her attendant by a gesture 
to remoA^e them. They AA^ere plays, under-scored in certain 
places by ink lines, and marked with marginal annotations 
referring to entrances, exits, and places on the stage. 
The servants, talking down -stairs of their mistress’ oc- 
cupation before her marriage, had not been misled by false 
reports. Their master, after he had passed the prime of 
life, had, in very truth, taken his wife from the obscure 
stage of a country theater, Avhen little more than two 
years had elapsed since her first appearance in public. 
The dog’s-eared old plays had been once her treasured 
dramatic library ; she had ahvays retained a fondness for 
them from old associations ; and, during the latter part of 
her illness, they had remained on her bed for days and 
days together. 

Having put aAvay the plays, Sarah Avent back to her mis- 
tress; and, Avith more of dread and bewilderment in her 
face than grief, opened her lips to speak. Mrs. Treverton 
held up her hand, as a sign that she had another order to 
give. 

“Bolt the door,” she said, in the same enfeebled voice, 
but with the same accent of resolution which had so strik- 
ingly marked her first request to have more light in the 
room. “Bolt the door. Let no one in, till I give vou 
leave.” 

“No one?” repeated Sarah, faintly. “Not the doetd?? 
not even my master?” 

“Not the doctor — not CA^en your master,'’ said Mrs. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


0 


Trevertoii, and pointed to the door. The hand wa^weak; 
but even in that momentary action of it there was no mis- 
taking the gesture of command. 

Sarah bolted the door, returned irresolutely to the bed- 
side, fixed her large, eager, startled eyes inquiringly on her 
mistress’ face, and, suddenly bending over her, said in a 
whisper : 

'‘Have you told my master?” 

‘‘No,” was the answer. “I sent for him, to tell him 

-i tried hard to speak the words —it shook me to my very 
soul, only to think how I should best break it to him— I 
am so fond of him ! I love him so dearly ! But I should 
have spoken in spite of that, if he had not talked of the 
child. Sarah! he did nothing but talk of the child— and 
that silenced me.” 

Sarah, with a forgetfulness of her station which might 
have appeared extraordinary even in the eyes of the most 
lenient of mistresses, flung herself back in a chair when the 
first word of Mrs. Treverton’s reply was uttered, clasped 
her trembling hands over her face, and groaned to herself, 
“ Oh, what will happen ! what will happen now !” 

Mrs. Treverton's eyes had softened and moistened when 
she spoke of her love for her husband. She lay silent for a 
few minutes ; the working of some strong emotion in her 
being expressed by her quick, hard, labored breathing, and 
by the painful contraction of her eyebrows. Ere long, she 
turned her head uneasily toward the chair in which her at-, 
tendant was sitting, and spoke again— this time in a voice 
which had sunk to a whisper: 

‘ ‘ Look for my medicine, ’ ’ said she. ‘ ‘ I want it. ’ ’ 

Sarah started up, and with the quick instinct of obedi- 
ence brushed away the tears that were rolling fast over her 
cheeks. 

“ The doctor,” she said. “Let me call the doctor.” 

“No! The medicine— look for the medicine.” 

“ Which bottle? The opiate ” 

“No. Not the opiate. The other.” 

Sarah took a bottle from the table, and looking atten- 
tively at the written directions on the label, said that it 
was not yet time to take that medicine again. 

“Give me the bottle.” 

“Oh, pray don’t ask me. Pray wait. The doctor said 
it was as bad as dram- drinking, if you took too much.” 

Mrs. Treverton’s clear gray eyes began to flash ; the rosy 
flush deepened on her cheeks ; the commanding hand was 
raised again, by an effort, from the counterpane on which 
it lay. 

“ Take the cork out of the bottle,” she said, “and give 


10 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


it to me. I want strength. No matter whether I die in 
an hour’s time or a week’s. Give me the bottle.” 

‘‘No, no- not the bottle!” said Sarah, giving it up, 
nevertheless, under the influence of her mistress’ look. 
“There are two doses left. Wait, pray wait till I get a 
glass.” 

She turned again toward the table ; at the same instant 
Mrs. Treverton raised the bottle to her lips, drained it of 
its contents, and flung it from her on the bed. 

“She has killed herself!” cried Sarah, running in terror 
to the door. 

“ Stop!” said the voice from the bed, more resolute than 
ever, already ; “ stop ! Come back and prop me up higher 
on the pillows. ” 

Sarah put her hand on the bolt. 

“ Come back!” reiterated Mrs. Treverton; “ while there 
is life in me, I will be obeyed. Come back!” The color 
began to deepen perceptibly all over her face, and the 
light to grow brighter in her widely opened eyes. 

Sarah came back ; and with shaking hands added one 
more to the many pillows which supported the dying 
woman’s head and shoulders. While this was being done 
the bedclothes became a little discomposed. Mrs. Trever- 
ton shuddered, and drew them up to their former position, 
close round her neck. 

“Did you unbolt the door?” she asked. 

“No.” 

“I forbid you to go near it again. Get my writing- 
case, and the pen and ink, from the cabinet near the win- 
dow.” 

Sarah went to the cabinet and opened it ; then stopped, 
as if some sudden suspicion had crossed her mind, and 
asked what the writing-materials were wanted for. 

“ Bring them, and you will see.’ ‘ 

The writing-case; with a sheet of note-paper on it, was 
placed upon Mrs. Treverton’s knees; the pen was dipped 
into the ink, and given to her ; she paused, closed her eyes 
for a minute, and sighed heavily; then began to write, 
saying to her waiting- maid, as the pen touched the paper, 
“ Look!” 

Sarah peered anxiously over her shoulder, and saw the 
pen slowly and feebly form these three words: To my 
Husband. 

“ Oh, no ! no ! For God’s sake, don’t write it !” she cried, 
catching at her mistress’ hand— but suddenly letting it go 
again the moment Mrs. Treverton looked at her. The pen 
went on; and more slowly, more feebly, formed words 
enough to fill a line— then stopped. The letters of the last 
syllable were all blotted together. 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


11 


“Don’t!” reiterated Sarah, dropping on her knees at the 
bedside. “ Don’t write it to him if you can’t tell it to him. 
Let me go on bearing what I have borne so long already. 
Let the secret die with you and die with me, and be never 
known in this world— never, never, never!” 

“The secret must be told,” answered Mrs. Treverton. 
“My husband ought to know it, and must know it. I 
tried to tell him, and my courage failed me. I cannot 
trust you to tell him, afte;" I am gone. It must be written. 
Take you the pen ; my sight is failing, my touch is dull. 
Take the pen, and write what I tell you.” 

Sarah, instead of obeying, hid her face in the bed- cover, 
and wept bitterly. 

“You have been with me ever since my marriage,” Mrs. 
Treverton went on. “ You have been my friend more than 
my servant. Do you refuse my last request? You do! 
Fool ! look up and listen to me. On your peril, refuse to 
take the pen. Write, or I shall not rest in my grave. 
Write, or as true as thei^eis a Heaven above us, I will come 
to you from the other world !” 

Sarah started to her feet with a faint scream. 

“You make my flesh creep!” she whispered, flxing her 
eyes on her mistress’ face with a stare of superstitious 
horror. 

At the same instant, the overdose of the stimulating 
medicine began to affect Mrs. Treverton’s brain. She rolled 
her head restlessly from side to side of the pillow— re 
peated vacantly a few lines from one of the old play -books 
which had been removed from her bed — and suddenly held 
out the pen to the servant, with a theatrical wave of the 
hand, and a glance upward at an imaginary gallery of 
spectators. “Write!” she cried, with an awful mimicry 
of her old stage voice. “ Write !” And the weak hand was 
waved again with a forlorn, feeble imitation of the old 
stage gesture. 

Closing her fingers mechanically on the pen that was 
thrust between them, Sarah, with her eyes still expressing 
the superstitious terror which her mistress’ words had 
aroused, waited for the next command. Some minutes 
elapsed before Mrs. Treverton spoke again. She still re- 
tained her senses sufficiently to be vaguely conscious of the 
effect which the medicine was producing on her, and to be 
desirous of combating its further progi%ss before it suc- 
ceeded in utterly confusing her ideas. She asked first for 
the smelling-bottle, next for some eau-de-Cologne. 

This last, poured on to her handkerchief and applied to 
her forehead, seemed to prove successful in partially clear 
ing her faculties. Her eyes recovered their steady look of 
intelligence; and, when she again addressed her maid, 


12 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


reiterating the word “Write,” she was able to enforce the 
direction by beginning immediately to dictate in quiet, de- 
liberate, determined tones. Sarah’s tears fell fast; her lips 
murmured fragments of sentences in which entreaties, ex- 
pressions of penitence, and exclamations of fear were all 
strangely mingled together ; but she wrote on submissively, 
in wavering lines, until she had nearly filled the first two 
sides of the note-paper. Then Mrs. Treverton paused, 
looked the writing over, and, taking the pen, signed her 
name at the end of it. With this effort, her powers of re- 
sistance to the exciting effect of the medicine seemed to fail 
her again. The deep flush began to tinge her cheeks once 
more, and she spoke hurriedly and unsteadily when she 
handed the pen back to her maid. 

“Sign!” she cried, beating her hand feebly on the bed- 
clothes. ‘ ‘ Sign ‘ Sarah Leeson, witness. ’ No !— write ‘ Ac- 
complice.’ Take your share of it; I won’t have it shifted 
on me. Sign, I insist on it ! Sign as I tell you.” 

Sarahobeyed; and Mrs. Treverton taking the paper from 
her, pointed to it solemnly, with a return of the stage gest- 
ure which had escaped her a little while back. 

“You will give this to your master,” she said, “ when I 
am dead ; and you will answer any questions he puts to 
you as truly as if you were before the judgment-seat.” 

Clasping her hands fast together, Sarah regarded her 
mistress, for the first time, with steady eyes, and spoke to 
her for the first time in steady tones. 

“If I only knew that I was fit to die,” she said, “oh, 
how gladly I would change places with you!” 

‘ ‘ Promise me that you will give the paper to your mas- 
ter,” repeated Mrs. Treverton. “Promise— no! I won’t 
trust your promise — I’ 11 have your oath. Get the Bible— 
the Bible the clergyman used when he was here this morn- 
ing. Get-it, or I shall not rest in my grave. Get it, or I 
will come to you from the other loorld"' 

The mistress laughed as she reiterated that threat. The 
maid shuddered, as she obeyed the command which it was 
designed to impress on her. 

“Yes, yes— the Bible the clergyman used,” c(fetinued 
Mrs. Treverton, vacantly, after the book had been pro- 
duced. “ The clergyman— a poor weak man — I frightened 
him, Sarah. He said, ‘Are you at peace with all the 
world?’ and I said, ‘ All but one.’ You know who.” 

“ The captain’s brother? Oh, don’t die at enmity with 
anybody. Don’t die at enmity even with pleaded 

Sarah. 

“The clergyman said so too,” murmured Mrs. Trever- 
ton, her eyes beginning to wander childishly round the 
room, her tones growing suddenly lower and more confused. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


1 


“‘You must forgive him,’ the clergyman said. And I 
said, ‘ No, I forgive all the world, but not my husband’s 
brother.’ The clergyman got up from the bedside, fright 
ened, Sarah. He talked about praying for me, and com 
ing back. W ill he come back ?’ ’ 

“Yes, yes,” answered Sarah. “He is a good man— he 
will come back— and oh ! tell him that you forgive the cap- 
tain’s brother ! Those vile words he spoke of you when you 
were married will come home to him some day. Forgive 
him— forgive him before you die!” 

Saying those words, she attempted to remove the Bible 
softly out of her mistress’ sight. This action attracted Mrs. 
Treverton’s attention, and roused her sinking faculties into 
observation of present things. 

“Stop!” she cried, with a gleam of the old resolution 
flashing once more over the dying dimness of her eyes. 
She caught at Sarah’s hand with a great effort, placed it on 
the Bible, and held it there. Her other hand wandered a 
little over the bedclothes, until it encountered the written 
paper addressed to her husband. Her Angers closed on it, 
and a sigh of relief escaped her lips. 

“ Ah!” she cried, “ I know what I wanted the Bible for. 
I’m dying with all my senses about me, Sarah; you can’t 
deceive me even yet.” She stopped again, smiled a little, 
whispered to herself rapidly. “Wait, wait, wait!” then 
added aloud, with the old stage voice and the old stage 
gesture: “No! I won’t trust you on your promise. I’ll 
have your oath. Kneel down. These are iny last words 
in this world— disobey them if you dare!” 

Sarah dropped on her knees by the bed. The breeze out 
side, strengthening just then with the slow advance of 
the morning, parted the window* curtains a little, and 
wafted a breath of its sweet fragrance joyously into the 
sick-room. The heavy beating hum of the distant surf 
cai^ie in at the same time, and poured out its unresting 
music in louder strains. Then the window-curtains fell to 
again heavily, the wavering flame of the candle grew steady 
once more, tod the awful silence in the room sunk deeper 
than ever 

“Swear!” said Mrs. Treverton. Her voice failed her 
when she had pronounced that one word. She struggled a 
little, recovered the power of utterance, and went on: 
“Swear that you will not destroy this paper after I am 
dead.” 

Even while she pronounced these solemn words, even at 
that last struggle for life and strength, the ineradicable 
theatrical instinct showed, with a fearful inappropriate - 
ness, how firmly it kept its place in her mind. Sarah felt 
the cold hand that was still laid on hers lifted for a mo- 


14 


THE DEAD SEOnET. 


merit— saw it waving gracefully toward her felt it descend 
again, and clasp her own hand with a trembling, impatient 
pressure. At that final appeal, she answered, laintly : 

“I swear it.” 

Swear that you will not take this paper away with you, 
if you leave the house, after I am dead. ’ ’ 

Again Sarah paused before she answered — again the 
trembling pressure made itself felt on her hand, but more 
weakly this time— and again the words dropped affright 
edly from her lips: 

“I swear it.” 

“ Swear !” Mrs. Treverton began for the third time. Her 
voice failed her once more; and she struggled vainly to 
regain the command over it. 

Sarah looked up, and saw signs of convulsion beginning 
to disfigure the white face — saw the fingers of the white, 
delicate hand getting crooked as they reached over toward 
the table on which the medicine-bottles were placed. 

“You drank it all,” she cried, starting to her feet, as 
she comprehended the meaning of that gesture. “Mis- 
tress, dear mistress, you drank it all— there is nothing but 
the opiate left. Let me go— let me go and call — ’ 

A look from Mrs. Treverton stopped her before she could 
utter another word. The lips of the dying woman were 
moving rapidly. Sarah put her ear close to them. At 
first she heard nothing but panting, quick-drawn breaths 
—then a few broken words mingled confusedly with them: 

“I haven’t done — you niust swear— close, close, come 
close — a third thing — your master — swear to give it ” 

The last words died away very softly. The lips that had 
been forming them so laboriously parted on a sudden and 
closed again no more. Sarah sprung to the door, opened 
it, and called into the passage for help; then ran back to 
the bedside, caught up the sheet of note-paper on which 
she had written trom her mistress’ dictation, and hid it in 
her bosom. The last look of Mrs. Treverton ’s eyes fast 
ened sternly and reproachfully on her as she (Md this, and 
kept their expression unchanged, through the momentary 
distortion of the rest of the features, for one breathless 
moment. That moment passed, and, with the next, the 
shadow which goes before the presence of death stole up 
and shut out the light of life in one quiet instant from all 
the face. 

The doctor, followed by the nurse and by one of the 
servants, entered the room ; and, hurrying to the bedside, 
saw at a glance that the time for his attendance there had 
passed away forever. He spoke first to the servant who 
had followed him. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


1.1 

“ Go to your master,” he said, “ and beg him to wait in 
his own room until I can come and speak to him.” 

Sarah still stood— without moving dr speaking, or notic 
ing any one — by the bedside. 

The nurse, approaching to draw the curtains together, 
started at the sight of her face, and turned to the doctor. 

think this person had better leave the room, sir?” 
said the nurse, with some appearance of contempt in her 
tones and looks. “She seems unreasonably shocked and 
terrified by what has happened.” 

“Quite right,” said the doctor. “It is best that she 
should withdraw. Let me recommend you to leave us for 
a little while,” he added, touching Sarah on the arm. 

She shrunk back suspiciously, raised one of her hands to 
the place where the letter lay hidden in her bosom, and 
pressed it there firmly, while she held out the other hand 
for a candle. 

“You had better rest for a little in your own room,” 
said the doctor, giving her a candle. “ Stop, though,” he 
continued, after a moment’s reflection. “I am going to 
break the sad newa to your master, and I may find that he 
is anxious to hear any last words that Mrs. Treverton may 
have spoken in your presence. Perhaps you had better 
Come with me, and wait while I go into Captain Trever- 
ton ’s room.” 

“No! no! — oh, not now— not now, for God’s sake!” 

Speaking those words in low, quick, pleading tones, and 
drawing back affrightedly to the door, Sarah disappeared 
without waiting a moment to be spoken to again. 

“A strange woman!” said the doctor, addressing the 
nurse. “Follow her, and see where she goes to, in case 
she is wanted and we are obliged to send for her. I will 
wait here until you come back. ” 

When the nurse returned she had nothing to report but 
that she had followed Sarah Leeson to her own bedroom, 
had seen her enter it, had listened outside, and had heai*d 
her lock the door. 

“A strange woman!” repeated the doctor. “One of 
the silent, secret sort. ” 

“ One of the wrong sort,” said the nurse. “ She is al- 
ways talking to herself, and that is a bad sign, in my 
opinion. I distrusted her, sir, the very first day I entered 
tne house.” 


CHAPTER IL 

THE CHILD. 

The instant Sarah Leeson had turned the key of her 
bedroom door, she took the sheet of note-paper from its 


16 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


place of concealment in her bosom— shuddering, when slie 
drew it out, as if the mere contact of it hurt her— placed 
it open on her little dressing-table, and fixed her eyes 
eagerly on the lines which the note contained. At first 
they swam and mingled together before her. She pressed 
her hands over her eyes, for a few minutes, and then looked 
at the writing again. 

The characters were clear now— vividly clear, and, as 
she fancied, unnaturally large and near to view. There 
was the address: “To my Husband;” there the first 
blotted line beneath, in her dead mistress’ handwriting; 
there the lines that followed, traced by her own pen, with 
the signature at the end — Mrs. Treverton’s first, and then 
her own. The whole amounted to but very few sentences, 
written on one perishable fragment of paper, which the 
flame of a candle would have consumed in a moment. Yet 
there she sat, reading, reading, reading, over and over 
again ; never touching the note, except when it was abso- 
lutely necessary to turn over the first page ; never moving, 
never speaking, never raising her eyes from the paper. As 
a condemned prisoner might read his death-warrant, so 
did Sarah Leeson now read the few lines which she and her 
mistress had written together not half an hour since. 

The secret of the paralyzing effect of that writing on her 
mind lay, not only in itself, but in the circumstances which 
had attended the act of its production. 

The oath which had been proposed by Mrs. Treverton 
under no more serious influence than the last caprice of 
her disordered faculties, stimulated by confused remem- 
brances of stage words and stage situations, had been ac- 
cepted by Sarah Leeson as the most sacred and inviolable 
engagement to which she could bind herself. The threat 
of enforcing obedience to her last commands from beyond 
the grave, which the mistress had uttered in mocking ex- 
periment on the superstitious fears of the maid, now hung 
darkly over the weak mind of Sarah, as a judgment which 
might descend on her, visibly and inexorably, at any mo- 
ment of her future life. When she roused herself at last, 
and pushed away the paper and rose to her feet, she stood 
quite still for an instant, before she ventured to look be- 
hind her. When she did look, it was with an effort and a 
start, with a searching distrust of the empty dimness in the 
remoter corners of the room. 

Her old habit of talking to herself began to resume its 
influence, as she now walked rapidly backward and for- 
ward, sometimes along the room and sometimes across it. 
She repeated incessantly such broken phrases as these: 
“How can I give him the letter? Such a good master; so 
kind to us all. Why did she die, and leave it all to me ?— 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


17 


I can’t bear it alone; it’s too much for ine.” While 
reiterating these sentences, she vacantly occupied herself 
in putting things about the room in order, which were set 
in perfect order already. All her looks, all her actions, 
betrayed the vain struggle of a weak mind to sustain itself 
under the weight of a heavy responsibility. She arranged 
and rearranged the cheap china ornaments on her chim- 
ney-piece a dozen times over — put her pin -cushion first on 
the looking-glass, then on the table in front of it — changed 
the position of the little porcelain dish and tray on her 
wash-hand-stand, now to one side of the basin, and now to 
the other. Throughout all these trifling actions the nat- 
ural grace, delicacy, and prim neat-handedness of the 
woman still waited mechanically on the most useless and 
aimless of her occupations of the moment. She knocked 
nothing down, she put nothing awry ; her footsteps at the 
fastest made no sound— the very skirts of her dress were 
kept as properly and prudishly composed as if it was broad 
daylight and the eyes of all her neighbors were looking at 
her. 

From time to time the sense of the words she was 
murmuring confusedly to herself changed. Sometimes 
they disjointedly expressed bolder and more self-reliant 
thoughts. Once they seemed to urge her again to the 
dressing-table and the open letter on it, against her own 
will. She read aloud the address, “ To my Husband,” and 
caught the letter up sharply, and spoke in firmer tones. 
“Why give it to him at all? Why not let the secret die 
with her and die with me, as it ought? Why should he 
know it? He shall not know it!” 

Saying those last words, she desperately held the letter 
within an inch of the flame of the candle. At the same 
moment the white curtain over the window before her 
stirred a little, as the freshening air found its way through 
the old-fashioned ill fltting sashes. Her eye caught sight 
of it, as it waved gently backward and forward. She 
clasped the letter suddenly to her breast with both hands, 
and shrunk back against the wall of the room, her eyes 
still fastened on the curtain- with the same blank look of 
horror which they had exhibited when Mrs. Treverton had 
threatened to claim her servant’s obedience from the other 
world. 

“Something moves,” she gasped to herself, in a breath- 
less whisper. “ Something moves in the room.” 

The curtain waved slowly to and fro for the second time. 
Still flxedly looking at it over her shoulder, she crept along 
the wall to the door. 

“Do you come to me already?” she said, her eyes riv 
eted on the curtain while her hand groped over the lock for 


18 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


the key. “ Before your grave is dug? Before your coffin 
is made? Before your body is cold?” 

She opened the door and glided into the passage; stopped 
there for a moment, and looked back into the room. 

“Best!” she said. ‘‘Best, mistress— he shall have the 
letter.” 

The staircase lamp guided her out of the passage. De 
scending hurriedly, as if she feared to give herself time to 
think, she reached Captain Treverton’s study, on the 
ground-floor, in a minute or two. The door was wide 
open, and the room was empty. 

After reflecting a little, she lighted one of the chamber- 
candles standing on the hall-table, at the lamp in the study, 
and ascended the staii’s again to her master’s bedroom. 
After repeatedly knocking at the door and obtaining no 
answer, she ventured to go in. The bed bad not been dis- 
turbed, the candles had not been lit —to all appearance the 
room had not even been entered during the night. 

There was but one other place to seek him— the chamber 
in which his wife lay dead. Could she summon the cour- 
age to give him the letter there? She hesitated a little- 
then whispered; ” I must! I must!” 

The direction she now compelled herself to take led her 
a little way down the stairs again. She descended very 
slowly this time, holding cautiously by the balusters, and 
pausing to take breath almost at every step. The door of 
what had been Mrs. Treverton’s bedroom was opened, 
when she ventured to knock at it, by the nurse, who in- 
quired, roughly and suspiciously, what she wanted there. 

‘ ‘ I want to speak to my master. ” 

“Look for him somewhere else. He was here half an 
hour ago. He is gone no w. ” 

‘ ‘ Do you know where he has gone?’ ’ 

“No. I don’t pry into other people’s goings and com- 
ings. I mind my own business.” 

With that discourteous answer, the nurse closed the door 
again. Just as Sarah turned away from it she looked to 
ward the inner end of the passage. The door of the nursery 
was situated there. It was ajar, and a dim gleam of candle- 
light was flickering through it. 

She went in immediately, and saw that the candle-light 
came from an inner room, usually occupied, as she well 
knew, by the nursery- maid, and by the only child of the 
house of Treverton— a little girl named Bosamond, aged, at 
that time, nearly five years. 

“ Can he be there?— in that room, of all the rooms in the 
house!” 

Quickly as the thought arose in her mind, Sarah raised 


THE 1»EAD SECRET. 


19 


the letter (which she had hitherto carried in her hand} to 
the bosom of her dress, and hid it for the second time, ex 
actly as she had hidden it on leaving her mistress’ bedside. 

She then stole across the nursery on tiptoe toward the 
inner room. The entrance to it, to please some caprice of 
the child’s, had been arched, and framed with trellis* work, 
gayly colored, so as to resemble the entrance to the sum- 
mer-house. Two pretty chintz curtains, hanging inside the 
trellis- work, formed the only barrier between the day- 
room and the bedroom. One of these was looped up, and 
toward the opening thus made Sarah now advanced, after 
cautiously leaving her candle in the passage outside. 

The first object that attracted her attention in the child’s 
bedroom was the figure of the nurse maid, leaning back,’ 
fast asleep, in an easy -chair by the window. Venturing, 
after this discovery, to look more boldly into the room, she 
next saw her master sitting with his back toward her, by 
the side of the Child's crib. Little Rosamond was awake, 
and was standing up in bed with her arms round her' 
father’s neck. One of her hands held over his shoulder 
the doll that she had taken to bed with her, the other was 
twined gently in his hair. The child had been crying bit- 
terly, and had now exhausted herself, so that she was only 
moaning a little from time to time, with her head laid 
wearily on her father’s bosom. 

The tears stood thick in Sarah’s eyes as they looked on 
her master and on the little hands that lay round his neck. 
She lingered by the raised curtain, heedless of the risk she 
ran, from moment to moment, of being discovered and 
questioned— lingered until she heard Captain Treverton say 
soothingly to the child : 

“Hush, Rosie, dear! hush, my own love! Don’t cry 
any more for poor mamma. Think of poor papa, and try 
to comfort him.’’ 

Simple as the words were, quietly and tenderly as they 
were spoken, they seemed instantly to deprive Sarah Lee- 
son of all power of self-control. Reckless whether she was 
heard or not, she turned and ran into the passage as if she 
had been flying for her life. Passing the candle she had 
left there, without so much as a look at it, she made for 
the stairs, and descended them with headlong rapidity to 
the kitchen-floor. There one of the servants who had been 
sitting up met her, and, with a face of astonishment and 
alarm, asked what was the matter. 

“ I’m ill-~I’m faint — I want air,’^' she answered, speak- 
ing thickly and confusedly. “Open the garden door, and 
let me out.” 

The man obeyed, but doubtfully, as if he thought her 
unfit to be trusted by herself. 


20 


THE DEAD SECRET 


“ She gets stranger than ever in her ways,” he said, 
when he rejoined his fellow-servant, after Sarah had hur- 
ried past him into the open air. “Now our mistress is 
dead, she will have to find another place, I suppose. I, 
for one, sha’n’t break my heart when she’s gone. Shall 
you ?” 


CHAPTEE III. 

THE HIDING OF THE SECRET. 

The cool, sweet air in the garden, blowing freshly over 
Sarah’s face, seemed to calm the violence of her agitation. 
She turned down a side walk, which led to a terrace and 
overlooked the church of the neighboring village. 

The daylight out of doors was clear already. The misty 
auburn light that goes before sunrise was flowing up, 
peaceful and lovely, behind a line of black-brown moor- 
land, over all the eastern sky. The old church, with the 
hedge of myrtle and fuchsia growing round the little cem- 
etery in all the luxuriance which is only seen in Cornwall, 
was clearing and brightening to view, almost as fast as the 
morning firmament itself. Sarah leaned her arms heavily 
on the back of a garden- seat, and turned her face toward 
the church. Her eyes wandered from the building itself 
to the cemetery by its side, rested there, and watched the 
light growing warmer and warmer over the lonesome ref- 
uge where the dead lay at rest. 

“Oh, my heart! my heart!” she said. What must it be 
made of not to break?” 

She remained for some time leaning on the seat, looking 
sadly toward the churchyard, and pondering over the 
words which she had heard Captain Treverton say to the 
child. They seemed to connect themselves, as everything 
else now appeared to connect itself in her mind, with the 
letter that had been written on Mrs. Treverton’s deathbed. 
She drew it from her bosom once more, and crushed it up 
angrily in her fingers. 

“Still in my hands! Still not seen by any eyes but 
mine,” she said, looking down at the crumpled pages. 
“ Is it all my fault? If she was alive now — if she had seen 
what I saw, if she had heard what I heard in the nursery 
-could she expect me to give him the letter?” 

Her mind was apparently steadied by the reflection which 
her last words expressed. She moved away thoughtfully 
from the garden-seat, crossed the terrace, descended some 
wooden steps, and followed a shrubbery path which led 


THE DEAD EEC RET 01 

round by a winding track from the east to the north side 
of the house. 

This part of the building had been uninhabited and neg- 
lected for more than half a century past. In the time of 
Captain Treverton’s father the whole range of the north 
rooms had been stripped of their finest pictures and their 
most valuable furniture, to assist in redecorating the west 
rooms, which now formed the only inhabited part of the 
house, and which wei’e amply sufficient for the accommo- 
dation of the family and of any visitors who came to stay 
with them. The mansion had been originally built in the 
form of a square, and had been strongly fortified. Of the 
many defenses of the place, but one now reraained~a 
heavy, low tower (from which and from the village near, 
the house derived its name of Porthgenna Tower), stand- 
ing at the southern extremity of the west front. The 
south side itself consisted of stables and outhouses, with a 
ruinous wall in front of them, which, running back east- 
ward at right angles, joined the north side, and so com- 
pleted the square which the whole outline of the building 
represented. 

The outside view of the range of north rooms, from the 
weedy, deserted garden below, showed plainly enough that 
many years had passed since any human creature had in- 
habited them. The window-panes were broken in some 
places, aitdieovered thickly with dirt and dust in others. 
Here, the shutters were closed — there, they were only half 
opened. The untrained ivy, the rank vegetation growing- 
in fissures of the stone-work, the festoons of spiders’ webs, 
the rubbish of Wood, bricks, plaster, broken glass, rags, and 
strips of soiled cloth, which lay beneath the windows, all 
told the same -tale of neglect. Shadowed by its position, 
this ruinous side of the house had a dark, cofd, wintery as 
pect, even on the sunny August morning when Sarah Lee- 
son strayed into the deserted northern garden. Lost in the 
labyrinth of her own thoughts, she moved slowdy past 
flower-beds, long since rooted up, and along gravel walks 
overgrown by weeds; her eyes wandering mechanically 
over the prospect, her feet mechanically carrying her on 
wherever there was a trace of a footpath, lead where it 
might. 

The shock which the words spoken by her master in the 
nursery had communicated to her mind, had set her whole 
nature, so to speak, at bay, and had roused in her, at last, 
the moral courage to arm herself with a final and desperate 
resolution. Wandering more and more slowly along the 
pathways of the forsaken garden, as the course of her ideas 
withdrew her more and more completely from all outward 
things, she stopped insensibly on an open patch of ground, 


n 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


which had once been a svell-kept lawn, and which still com^ 
manded a full view of the long range of uninhabited north 
rooms; 

“ What binds me to give the letter to my master at all?” 
she thought to herself, smoothing out the crumpled paper 
dreamily in the palm of her hand. “My mistress died 
without making me swear to do that. Can she visit it on 
me from the other world, if I keep the promises I swore to 
observe, and do no more? May I not risk the worst that 
can happen, so long as I hold religiously to all that I un- 
dertook to do on my oath?” 

She paused here in reasoning with herself — her supersti- 
tious rears still influencing her out of doors, in the day- 
light, as they had influenced her in her own room, in the 
time of darkness. She paused— then fell to smoothing the 
letter again, and began to recall the terms of the solemn 
engagement which Mrs. Treverton had forced her to con- 
tract. 

What had she actually bound herself to do? Not to de- 
stroy the letter, and not to take it away with her if she 
left the house. Beyond that, Mrs. Treverton’s desire had 
been that the letter should be given to her husband. Was 
that last wish binding on the person to whom it had been 
confided? Yes. As binding as an oath? No. 

As she arrived at that conclusion, she looked up. 

At first her eyes rested vacantly on the lonely, deserted 
north front of the house ; gradually they became attracted 
by one particular window exactly in the middle, on the 
floor above the ground — the largest and l^he gloomiest of 
all the row ; suddenly they brightened with an expression 
of intelligence. Bhe started; a faint flush of color flew 
into her cheeks, and she hastily advanced closer to the wall 
of the house. 

The panes of the large window were yellow with dust 
and dirt, and festooned about fantastically with cobwebs. 
Below it was a heap of rubbish, scattered over the diy 
mold of what might once have been a bed of flowers or 
shrubs. The form of the bed was still marked out by an 
oblong boundary of Aveeds and rank grass. She followed 
it irresolutely all round, looking up at the window at every 
step — then stopped close under it, glanced at the letter in 
her hand, and said to herself abruptly: 

“ I’ll risk it!” 

As the words fell from her lips, she hastened back to the 
inhabited part of the house, followed the passage on the 
kitchen- floor which led to the housekeeper’s room, entered 
it, and took down from a nail in the Avail a bunch of keys, 
having a large ivory label attached to the ring that con- 


THE DEAD SECRET. 23 

nected them, on which was inscribed, “ Keys of the North 
Rooms.” 

She placed the keys on a writing-table near her, took up 
a pen, and rapidly added these lines on the blank side of 
the letter which she had written under her mistress’ dicta- 
tion: 

” If this paper should ever be found (which I pray with 
my whole heart it never may be), I wish to say that i have 
come to the resolution of hiding it, because I dare not show 
the writing that it contains to my master, to whom it is 
addressed. In doing what I now propose to do, though I 
am acting against my mistress’ last wishes, I am not break- 
ing the solemn engagement which she obliged me to make 
bet ore her on her death-bed. That engagement forbids me 
to destroy this letter, or to take it away with me if I leave 
the house. I shall do neither— my purpose is to conceal it 
in the place, of all others, where I think there is least 
chance of its ever being found. Any hardship or misfort- 
une which may follow as a consequence of this deceitful 
proceeding on my part, will fall on myself. Others, I be- 
lieve in my conscience, will be the happier for the hiding 
of the dreadful secret which this letter contains.” 

She signed those lines with her name — pressed them hur- 
riedly over the blotting-pad that lay with the rest of the 
writing materials on the table— took the note in her hand, 
after first folding it up, and then, snatching at the bunch 
of keys, with a look all round her as if she dreaded being 
secretly observed, left the room. All her actions since 
she had entered it had been hasty and sudden ; she was 
evidently afraid of allowing herself one leisure moment to 
refiect. 

On quitting the housekeeper* s room, she turned to the 
left, ascended a back staircase, and unlocked a door at the 
top of it. A cloud of dust flew all about her as she softly 
opened the door ; a moldy coolness made her shiver as she 
crossed a large stone hall, with some black old family por- 
traits hanging on the walls, the canvases of which were 
bulging out of the frames. Ascending more stairs, she came 
upon a row of doors, all leading into rooms on the first floor 
of the north side of the house. 

She knelt down, putting the letter on the boards beside 
her, opposite the key -hole of the fourth door she came to 
after reaching the top of the stairs, peered in distrustfully 
for an instant, then began to try the diffei'ent keys till she 
found one that fitted the lock. She had great difficulty in 
accomplishing this, from the violence of her agitation, 
which made her hands tremble to such a degree that she 


24 


THE DEAD SECRET 


was hardly able to keep the keys separate one from the 
other. At length she succeeded in opening the door. 
Thicker clouds of dust than she had yet met with flew 
out the moment the interior of the room was visible; a 
dry, airless, suffocating atmosphere almost choked her as 
she stooped to pick up the letter from the floor. She re- 
coiled from it at first, and took a few steps backward 
toward the staircase. But she recovered her resolution im- 
mediately. 

“ I can’t go back now!” she said, desperately, and en- 
tered the room. 

She did not remain in it more than two or three minutes. 
When she came out again her face was white with fear, 
and the hand which had held the letter when she went into 
the room held nothing now but a^small rusty key. 

After locking the door again, she examined the large 
bunch of keys which she had taken from the housekeeper’s 
room, with closer attention than she had yet bestowed on 
them. Besides the ivory label attached to the ring that 
connected them, there were smaller labels, of parchment, 
tied to the handles of some of the keys, to indicate the rooms 
to which they gave admission. The particular key which 
she had used had one of these labels hanging to it. She 
held the little strip of parchment close to the light, and 
read on it, in written characters, faded by time: 

” The Myrtle Roomy 

The room in which the letter was hidden had a name, 
then ! A prettily-sounding name that would attract most 
people, and keep pleasantly in their memories. A name to 
be^ distrusted by her, after what she had done, on that very 
account. 

She took her housewife from its usual place in the pocket 
of her apron, and, with the scissors which it contained, cut 
the label from the key. Was it enough to destroy that one 
only ? She lost herself in a maze of useless conjecture ; and 
ended by cutting off the other labels, from no other motive 
than instinctive suspicion of them. 

Carefully gathering up the strips of parchment from the 
floor, she put them, along with the little rusty key which 
she had brought out of the Myrtle Room, in the empty 
pocket of her apron. Then, carrying the large bunch of 
keys in her hand, and carefully locking the doors that she 
had opened on her way to the north side of Porthgenna 
Tower, she retraced her steps to the housekeeper’s room, 
entered it without seeing anybody, and hung up the bunch 
of keys again on the nail in the wall. 

Fearful, as the morning hours wore bn, of meeting with 
some of the female servants, she next hastened back to her 
bedroom. The candle she had left thex^e was $ti)l burning 


THE DEAD SECIiET. 


25 


feebly in the fresh daylight. When she drew aside the 
window-curtain, after extinguishing the candle, a shadow 
of her former fear passed over her face, even in the broad 
daylight that now flowed in upon it. She opened the win- 
dow, and leaned out eagerly into the cool air. 

Whether for good or for evil, the fatal secret was hidden 
now — the act was done. There was something calming in 
the first consciousness of that one fact. She could think 
more composedly, after that, of herself, and of the uncer- 
tain future that lay before her. 

Under no circumstances could she have expected to re- 
main in her situation, now that the connection between 
herself and her mistress had been severed by death. She 
knew that Mrs. Treverton, in the last days of her illness, 
had earnestly recommended her maid to Captain Trever- 
ton ’s kindness and protection, and she felt assured that the 
wife’s last entreaties, in this as in all other instances, would 
be viewed as the most sacred of obligations by the husband. 
But could she accept protection and kindness at the hand 
of the master w^hom she had been accessory to deceiving, 
and whom she had now committed herself to deceiving 
still? The bare idea of such baseness was so revolting, that 
she accepted, almost with a sense of relief, the one sad al- 
ternative that remained — the alternative of leaving the 
house immediately. 

And how was she to leave it? By giving formal warn- 
ing, and so exposing herself to questions which would be 
sure to confuse and terrify her? Could she venture to face 
her master again, after what she had done— to face him, 
when his first inquiries would refer to her mistress, when 
he would be certain to ask her for the last mournful de 
tails, for the slightest word that had been spoken during 
the death-scene that she alone had witnessed? She started 
to her feet, as the certain consequences of submitting her- 
self to that unendurable trial all crowded together warn- 
ingly on her mind, took her cloak from its place on the 
wall, and listened at her door in sudden suspicion and fear. 
Had she heard footsteps? Was her master sending for her 
already? 

No; all was silent outside. A few tears rolled over her 
cheeks as she put on her bonnet, and felt that she was 
facing, by the performance of that simple action, the last, 
and perhaps the hardest to meet, of the cruel necessities in 
which the hiding of the secret had involved her. There 
was no help for it. She must run the risk of betraying 
everything or brave the double trial of leaving Porthgenna 
Tower, and leaving it secretly. 

Secretly— as a thief might go? Without a word to her 


26 


THE DEAD SECUET. 


master? without so much as one line of writing to thank 
him for his kindness and to ask his pardon? She had un 
locked her desk, and had taken from it her purse, one or 
two letters, and a little book of Wesley’s Hymns, before 
these considerations occurred to her. They made her 
pause in the act of shutting up the desk. “ Shall I write?” 
she asked herself, “ and leave the letter here, to be found 
when I am gone?” 

A little more reflection decided her in the affirmative. 
As rapidly as her pen could form the letters, she wrote a 
few lines addressed to Captain Treverton, in which she con- 
fessed to having kept a secret from his knowledge which 
had been left in her charge to divulge; adding, that she 
honestly believed no harm could come to him, or to any^one 
in whom he was interested, by her failing to perform the 
duty intrusted to her; and ended by asking his pardon for 
leaving the house secretly, and by begging as a last favor, 
that no search might ever be made for her. Having sealed 
this short note, and left it on her table with her master's 
name written outside, she listened again at the door; 
and, after satisfying herself that no one was yet stirring, 
began to descend the stairs at Porthgenna Tower for the 
last time. 

At the entrance of the passage leading to the nursery she 
stopped. The tears which she had restrained since leaving 
her room began to flow again. Urgent as her reasons now 
were for effecting her departure without a moment’s loss 
of time, she advanced, with the strangest inconsistency, a 
few steps towards the nursery door. Before she had gone 
far, a slight noise in the lower part of the house caught her 
ear and instantly checked her further progress. 

While she stood doubtful, the grief at her heart — a greater 
grief than any she had yet betrayed — rose irresistibly to 
her lips, and burst from them in one deep gasping sob. 
The sound of it seemed to terrify her into a sense of the 
danger of her position, if she delayed a moment longer. 
She ran out again to the stairs, reached the kitchen-floor in 
safety, and made her escape by the garden-door which the 
servant had opened for her at the dawn of the morning. 

On getting clear of the premises at Porthgenna Tower, 
instead of taking the nearest path over the moor that led 
to the high-road, she diverged to the church; but stopped 
before she came to it, at the public well of the neighbor- 
hood, which had been sunk near the cottages of the Porth 
genna fishermen. Cautiously looking round her, she 
dropped into the well the little rusty key which she had 
brought out of the Myrtle Room; then hurried on, and 
entered the churchyard. Slie directed her course straight 


THK DEAD SECRET. 


w7 

to one of the graves, situated a little apart from the rest. 
On the head-stone were inscribed these words : 

SACRED TO THE MEMORY 
OF 

"HUGH POLWHEAL 
AGED 26 YEARS. 

HE MET WITH HIS DEATH 
THROUGH THE FALL OF A ROOK 
IN 

PORTHGENNA mNE, 

DECEMBER 17TH, 1823. 

Gathering a few leaves of grass from the grave, Sarah 
opened the little book of “Wesley’s Hymns ” which she 
had brought with her from the bedroom of Porthgenna 
Tower, and placed the leaves delicately and carefully be- 
tween the pages. As she did this, the wind blew open the 
title-page of the “Hymns” and displayed this inscription 
on it, written in large, clumsy character: “Sarah Leeson, 
her book. The gift of Hugh Polwheal.” 

Having secured the blades of grass between the pages of 
the book, she retraced her way toward the path leading to 
the high-road. Arrived on the moor, she took out of ner 
apron- pocket the parchment labels that had been cut from 
the keys, and scattered them under the furze-bushes. 

“Gone,” she said, “ as I am gone! God help and for- 
give me — it is all done and over now!” 

With those words she turned her back on the old house 
and the sea- view below it, and followed the moorland path 
on her way to the high-road. 

* ’k 

Four hours afterword Captain Treverton desired one of 
the servants at Porthgenna Tower to inform Sarah Leeson 
that he wished to hear all she had to tell him of the dying 
moments of her m.istress. The messenger returned with 
looks and words of amazement, and with the letter that 
Sarah had addressed to her master in his hand. 

The moment Captain Treverton had read the letter, he 
ordered an immediate search to be made after the missing 
woman. She was so easy to describe and to recognize, by 
the premature gray ness of her hair, by the odd, scared look 
in her eyes, and by her habit of constantly talking to her 
self, that she was traced with certainty as far as Truro. In 
that large town the track of her was lost, and never recov- 
ered again. 


28 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


Rewards were olfered ; the magistrates of the district wei*e 
interested in the case; all that wealth and power could do 
to discover her was done — and done in vain. No clew was 
found to suggest a suspicion of her whereabouts, or to help 
in the slightest degree toward explaining the nature of the 
secret at which she had hinted in her letter. Her master 
never saw her again, never heard of her again, after the 
morning of the twenty-third of August, eighteen hundred 
and twenty-nine. 


-o 


BOOK IL 


CHAPTER I. 

FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER. 

The church of Long Beckley (a large agricultural village 
in one of the midland counties of England), although a 
building in no way remarkable either for its size, its archi- 
tecture, or its antiquity, possesses, nevertheless, one ad- 
vantage which mercantile London has barbarously denied 
to the noble cathedral church of St. Paul. It has plenty of 
room to stand in, and it can consequently be seen with per- 
fect convenience from every point of view, all around the 
compass. 

The large, open space around the church can be ap- 
proached in three different directions. There is a road 
from the village, leading straight to the principal door. 
There is a broad gravel walk, which begins at the vicarage 
gates, crosses the churchyard, and stops, as in duty bound, 
at the vestry entrance. There is a foot path over the 
fields, by which the lord of the manor, and the gentry in 
general who live in his august neighborhood, can reach the 
side door of the building, whenever their natural humility 
may incline them to encourage Sabbath observance in the 
stables by going to church, like the lower sort of worship- 
ers, on their own legs. 

At half past seven o’clock, on a certain fine summer 
morning, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-four, if 
any observant stranger had happened to be standing in 
some unnoticed corner of the churchyard, and to be look- 
ing about him with sharp eyes, he would probably have 
been the witness of proceedings which might have led him 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


29 


to believe that there was a conspiracy going on in Long 
Beckley, of which the church was the rallying-point, and 
some of the most respectable inhabitants the principal 
leaders. Supposing him to have been looking toward the 
vicarage as the clock chimed the half hour, he would have 
seen the vicar of Long Beckley, the Reverend Dr. Chen- 
nery, leaving his house suspiciously, by the back way, 
glancing behind him guiltily as he approached the gravel 
walk that led to the vestry, stopping mysteriously just out- 
side the door, and gazing anxiously down the road that led 
from the village. 

Assuming that our observant stranger would, upon this, 
keep out of sight, and look down the road, like the vicar, he 
would next have seen the clerk of the church— an austere, 
yellow-faced man — a Protestant Loyola in appearance, 
and a working shoe- maker by trade— approaching with a 
look of unutterable mystery in his face, and a bunch of big 
keys in his hands. He would have seen the vicar nod in an 
abstracted manner to the clerk, and say, “Fine morning, 
Thomas. Have you had your breakfast yet?” He would 
have heard Thomas reply, with a suspicious regard for 
minute particulars: “ I have had a cup of tea and a crust, 
sir.” And he would then have seen these two local con- 
spirators, after looking up with one accord at the church 
clock, draw off together to the side door which commended 
a view of the foot path across the fields. 

Following them— as our inquisitive stranger could not 
fail to do— he would have detected three more conspirators 
advancing along the foot path. The leader of this treason- 
able party was an elderly gentleman with a weather -beaten 
face and a bluff, hearty manner. His two followers were 
a young gentleman and a young lady, walking arm-in-arm, 
and talking together in whispers. They were dressed in 
the plainest morning-costume. The faces of both were 
rather pale, and the manner of the lady was a little flur- 
ried.* Otherwise there was nothing remarkable to observe 
in them, until they came to the wicket-gate leading into 
the churchyard ; and there the conduct of the young gen- 
tleman seemed at first sight rather inexplicable. Instead 
of holding the gate open for the lady to pass through, he 
hung back, allowed her to open it for herself, waited till 
she had got to the churchyard side, and then, stretching 
out his hand over the gate, allowed her to lead him through 
•the entrance, as if he had suddenly changed from a grown 
man to a helpless little child. 

Noting this, and remarking also that, when the party 
from the field had arrived within greeting distance of the 
vicar, and when the clerk had used his bunch of keys to 
open the church- door, the young lady’s companion was led 


so 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


into the building (this time hy Dr. Chennery’s hand), as 
he had been previously led through the wicket-gate, our 
observant stranger must have arrived at one inevitable 
conclusion — that the person requiring such assistance as 
"this was suffering under the affliction of blindness. Startled 
a little by that discovery, he would have been still further 
amazed, if he had looked into the church, by seeing 
the blind man and the young lady standing together before 
the altar rails, with the elderly gejitleman in parental 
attendance. Any suspicions he might now entertain that 
the bond whicli united the conspirators at that early hour 
of the morning was of the hymeneal sort, and that the 
object of their plot was to celebrate a wedding -with tlie 
strictest secrecy, would have been confirmed in five min- 
utes by the appearance of Dr. Ohennery from the vestry 
in full canonicals, and by the reading of the marriage 
service in the reverend gentleman’s most harmonious offi- 
ciating tones. The ceremony concluded, the attendant 
stranger must have been more perplexed than ever by ob- 
serving that the persons concerned in it all separated, the 
moment the signing, the kissing, and congratulating duties 
proper to the occasion had been performed, and quickly 
retired in the various directions by which they had ap- 
proached the church. 

Leaving the clerk to return by the village road, the 
bride, bridegroom, and elderly gentleman to turn back by 
the footpath over the fields, and the visionary stranger of 
these pages to vanish out of them in any direction that he 
pleases— let us follow Dr. Chennery to the vicarage break- 
fast-table, and hear what he has to say about his profes- 
sional exertions of the morning in the familiar atmosphere 
of his own family circle. 

The persons assembled at the .breakfast were, first, Mr. 
Phippen, a guest; secondly, Miss Sturch, a governess; 
thirdly, fourthly, and fifthly. Miss Louisa Chennery (aged 
eleven years). Miss Amelia Chennery (aged nine years), 
and Master Robert Chennery (aged eight years). There 
was no mother’s face present, to make the household pict- 
ure complete. Dr. Chennery had been a widower since 
the birth of his youngest child. 

The guest was an old college acquaintance of the vicar’s, 
and he was supposed to be now staying at Long Beckley 
for the benefit of his health. Most men of any character 
at all contrive to get a reputation of some sort which indi- 
vidualizes them in the social circle amid which they move. 
Mr. Phippen was a man of some little character, and he 
lived with great distinction in the estimation of his friends 
on the reputation of being a martyr to dyspepsia. ^ 

Wherever Mr. Phippen went, the woes of Mr. Phippen s ^ 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


31 


stomach went with him. He dieted himself publicly, and 
physicked himself publicly. He was so intensely occupied 
with himself and his maladies, that he would let a chance 
acquaintance into the secret of the condition of his tongue 
at five minutes’ notice; being just as perpetually ready to 
discuss the state of his digestion as people in general are to 
discuss the state of the weather. On this favorite subject, 
as on all others, he spoke with a wheedling gentleness of 
manner, sometimes in softly mournful, sometimes in lan- 
guidly sentimental tones. His politeness was of the op- 
pressively affectionate sort, and he used the word “dear” 
continually in addressing himself to others. Personally, he 
could not be called a handsome man. His eyes were 
watery, large, and light gray; they were always rolling 
from side to side in a state of moist admiration of some- 
thing or somebody. His nose was long, drooping, pro- 
foundly melancholy— -if such an expression may be permit- 
ted in reference to that particular feature. For the rest, 
his lips had a lachrymose twist; his stature was small; his 
head large, bald, and loosely set on his shoulders ; his man- 
ner of dressing himself eccentric, on the side of smartness ; 
his age about five-and-forty ; his condition that of a single 
man. Such was Mr. Phippen, the Martyr of Dyspepsia, 
and the guest of the Vicar of Long Beckley. 

Miss Sturch, the governess, may be briefly and accurately 
described as a young lady who had never been troubled 
with an idea or a sensation since the day when she w^- 
born. She was a little, plump, quiet, white-skinned, s^m- 
ing, neatly-dressed girl, wound up accurately to per- 
formance of certain duties at certain times; possessed 
of an inexhaustible vocabulary of commonplace talk,^hich 
dribbled placidly out of her lips whenever it was called for, 
always in the same quantity, and always of the same qual- 
ity, at every hour in the day, and through every change in 
the seasons. Miss Sturch never laughed, and never cried, 
but took the safe middle course of smiling perpetually. 
She smiled when she came down on a morning in January, 
and said it was very cold. She smiled when she came 
down on a morning in July, and said it was very hot. She 
smiled when the bishop came once a year to see the vicar; 
she smiled when the butcher’s boy came every morning 
for orders. Let what might happen at the vicarage, noth- 
ing ever jerked Miss Sturch out of the one smooth groove 
in which she ran perpetually,' always at the same pace. 
If she had lived in a royalist family, during the civil wars 
in England, she would have rung for the cook, to order 
dinner, on the morning of the execution of Charles the 
First. 

If Shakespear'C had come back to life again, and had called 


32 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


at the vicarage at six o’clock on Saturday evening, to ex- 
plain to Miss Sturch exactly what his views were in com- 
posing the tragedy of Hamlet, she would have smiled, and 
said it was extremely interesting, until the striking of seven 
o’clock; at which time she would have left him in the mid- 
dle of a sentence, to superintend the housemaid in the veri- 
fication of the washing-book. A very estimable young per- 
son, Miss Sturch (as the ladies of Long Beckley were 
accustomed to say) ; so judicious with the children, and so 
attached to her household duties; such a well-regulated 
mind, and such a crisp touch on the piano; just nice-look- 
ing enough, just well-dressed enough, just talkative enough; 
not quite old enough, perhaps, and a little too much in- 
clined to be embraceably plump about the region of the 
waist — but, on the whole, "a most estimable young person — 
very much so, indeed. 

On the characteristic peculiarities of Miss Sturch’s pu- 
pils, it is not necessary to dwell at very great length. Miss 
Louisa’s habitual weakness was an inveterate tendency to 
catch cold. Miss Amelia’s principal defect was a disposi- 
tion to gratify her palate by eating supplementary dinners 
and breakfasts at unauthorized times and seasons. Master 
Eobert’s most noticeable failings were caused by alacrity in 
tearing his clothes, and obtuseness in learning the multipli- 
cation table. The virtues of all three were of much the 
same nature — they were well grown, they were genuine 
children, and they were boisterously fond of Miss Sturch. 

To complete the gallery of family portraits, an outline, 
at the leet«t, must be attempted of the vicar himself. Dr. 
Chennery was, in a physical point of view, a credit to the 
establishment to which he was attached. He stood six feet 
two in his shooting-shoes ; he weighed fifteen stone; he was 
the best bowler in the Long Beckley cricket-club; he was a 
strictly orthodox man in the matter of wine and mutton ; 
he never started disagreeable theories about people’s future 
destinies in the pulpit, never quarreled with anybody out 
of the pulpit, never buttoned up his pockets when the ne- 
cessities of his poor brethren (Dissenters included) pleaded 
with him to open them. His course through the world 
was the steady march along the high and dry middle of a 
safe turnpike-road. The serpentine side-paths of contro- 
versy might open as alluringly as they pleased on his right 
hand and on his left, but he kept on his way sturdily, and 
never regarded tliem. Innovating young recruits in the 
Church army might, entrappingly, open the Thirty-nine 
Articles under his very nose, but the veteran’s wary eye 
never looked a hair’s- breadth further than his own signa- 
ture at the bottom of them. He knew as little as possible of 
theology, he had never given the Privy Council a minute’s 


THE DEAD SECHET. 


n 

trouble in the whole course of his life, he was innocent of 
all meddling with the reading or writing of pamphlets, 
and he was quite incapable of finding his way to the plat- 
form of Exeter Hall. In short, he was the most unclerical 
of clergymen— but, for all that, he had such a figure for a 
surplice as is seldom seen. Fifteen-stone weight of upright 
muscular flesh, without an angry spot or «ore place in any 
part of it, has the merit of suggesting stabilit}^, at any rate 
—an excellent virtue in pillars of all kinds, but an es- 
pecially precious quality at the present time, in a pillar of 
the Church. 

As soon as the vicar entered the breakfast-parlor, tlie 
children assailed him with a chorus of shouts. He was a 
severe disciplinarian in the observance of punctuality at 
meal-times; and he now stood convicted by the clock of 
being too late for breakfast by a quarter of an hour. 

“ Sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Sturch,” said the 
vicar ; ‘ ‘ but I have a good excuse for being late this morn- 
ing.'’ 

“ Pray don’t mention it, sir,” said Miss Sturch, blandly 
rubbing her plump little hands one over the other. ”A 
beautiful morning. I fear we shall have another warm 
day. Eobert, my love, your elbow is on the table. A 
beautiful morning, indeed!” 

” Stomach still out of order — eh, Phippen?” asked the 
vicar, beginning to carve the ham. 

Mr. Phippen shook his large head dolefully, placed his 
yellow forefinger, ornamented with a large turquois ring, 
on the center check of his light-green summer waistcoat- 
looked piteously at Dr. Chennery, and sighed — removed 
the finger, and produced from the breast-pocket of his 
wrapper a little mahogany case— took out of it a neat pair 
of apothecary’s scales, with the accompanying weights, a 
morsel of ginger, and a highly polished silver nutmeg- 
grater. “ Dear Miss Sturch will pardon an invalid?” said 
Mr. Phippen, beginning to grate the ginger feebly into the 
nearest tea cup. ♦ 

“Guess what has made me a quarter of an hourdate this 
morning,” said the vicar, looking mysteriously all round 
the table. 

“Lying in bed, papa,” cried the three children, clapping 
their hands in triumph. 

“ What do you say. Miss Sturch?” asked Dr. Chennery. 

Miss Sturch smiled as usual, rubbed her hands as usual, 
cleared her throat softly as usual, looked at the tea-urn, 
and begged, with the most graceful politeness, to be excused 
if she said nothing. 

“Your turn now, Phippen,” said the vicar. *^Come, 
guess what has kept me late this morning.” 


u 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


“ My dear friend,” said Mr. Phippen, giving the doctor a 
brotherly squeeze of the hand, ” don’t ask me to guess— I 
know ! I saw what you eat at dinner yesterday— I saw 
what you drank after dinner. No digestion could stand it 
—not even yours. Guess what has made you late this morn 
ing? Pooh ! pooh ! I know. You dear, good soul, you have 
been taking physic!” 

“Haven’t touched a drop, thank God, for the last ten 
years I” said Dr. Chennery, with a look of devout gratitude. 
“No, no; you’re all wrong. The fact is, I have been to 
church; and what do you think I have been doing there? 
Listen, Miss Sturch— listen, girls, with all your ears. 
Poor blind young Frankland is a happy man at last— I 
have married him to our dear Rosamond Treverton this 
very morning!” 

“Without telling us, papa!” cried the two girls together, 
in their shrillest tones of vexation and surprise. ” With- 
out telling us, when you know how we should have liked 
to see it!” 

“ That was the very reason why I did not tell you, roy 
dears,” answered the vicar. “ Young Frankland has not 
got so used to his affliction yet, poor fellow, as to bear 
being publicly pitied and stared at in the character of a 
blind bridegroom. He had such a nervous horror of being 
an object of curiosity on his wedding-day, and Rosamond, 
like a kind-hearted girl as she is, was so anxious that his 
slightest caprices should be humored, that we settled to 
have the wedding at an hour in the morning when no idlers 
were likely to be lounging about the neighborhood of the 
church. I was bound over to the strictest secrecy about 
the day, and so was my clerk Thomas. Excepting us two, 
and the bride and bridegroom, and the bride’s father. Cap- 
tain Treverton, nobody knew 

“Treverton!” exclaimed Mr. Phippen, holding his tea- 
cup. with the grated ginger in the bottom of it, to be filled 
by Miss Sturch. “Treverton! (No more tea, dear Miss 
Sturch.) How very remarkable ! I know the name. (Fill 
up with water, if you please.) Tell me, my dear doctor 
(many, many thanks; no sugar— it turns acid on the stom- 
ach), is this Miss Treverton whom you have been marrying 
(many thanks again ; no milk, either) one of the Cornish 
Trevertons?” 

“To be sure she is!” rejoined the vicar. “Her father. 
Captain Treverton, is the head of the family.. Not that 
there’s much family to speak of now. The captain, and 
Rosamond, and that whimsical old brute of an uncle of 
hers, Andrew Treverton, are the last left now of the old 
stock— a rich family, and a fine family, in former times 


THE DEAD SECRET 85 

—good friends to Church and State, you know, and all 
that ” 

“ Do you approve, sir, of Amelia having a second help- 
ing of bread and marmalade?” asked Miss Sturch, appeal- 
ing to Dr. Chennery, with the most perfect unconsciousness 
of interrupting him. Having no spare room in her mind 
for putting things away in until the appropriate time came 
for bringing them out, Miss Sturch always asked questions 
and made remarks the moment they occurred to her, with- 
out waiting for the beginning, middle, or end of any conver- 
sations that might be proceeding in her presence. She in- 
variably looked the part of a listener to perfection, but she 
never acted it except in the case of talk that was aimed point- 
blank at her own ears. 

“Oh, give her a second helping, by all means!” said the 
vicar, carelessly; “if she must overeat herself, she may 
as well do it on bread and marmalade as on anything 
else.” 

“My dear, good soul,” exclaimed Mr. Phippen, “look 
what a wreck I am, and don’t tall: in that shockingly 
thoughtless way of letting our sweet Amelia overeat her- 
self. Load the stomach in youth, and what becomes of the 
digestion in age? The thing which vulgar people call the 
inside— I appeal to Miss Sturch’ s interest in her charming 
pupil as an excuse for going into physiological particulars 
— is, in point of fact, an Apparatus. Digestively considered. 
Miss Sturch, even the fairest and youngest of us is an Ap- 
paratus. Oil our wheels, if you like ; but clog them at your 
peril. Farinaceous puddings and mutton-chops; mutton- 
chops and farinaceous puddings— those should be the par- 
ents’ watch-words, if I had my way, from one end of Eng- 
land to the other. Look here, my sweet child — look at 
me. There is no fun, dear, about these little scales, but 
dreadful earnest. See ! I put in the balance on one side 
dry bread (stale, dry bread, Amelia!) and on the other 
some ounce weights. ‘ Mr. Phippen, eat by weight. Mr. 
Phippen ! eat the same quantity, day by day, to a hair’s- 
breadth. Mr. Phippen ! exceed your allowance though (it 
is only stale, dry bread) if you dare!’ Amelia, love, this is 
not fun — this is what the doctors tell me — the doctors, my 
child, who have been searching my Apparatus through and 
through for thirty years past with little pills, and have not 
found out where my wheels are clogged yet. Think of 
that, Amelia— think of Mr. Phippen’ s clogged Apparatus — 
and say ‘ No, thank you,’ next time. Miss Sturch, I beg a 
thousand pardons for intruding on y^our province; but my 
interest in that sweet child— Chennery, you dear, good 
soul, what were we talking about? Ah! the bride— the in 
teresting bride! And so she is one of the Cornish Trevor- 


TEE DEAJ> secret. 


% 

tons? I knew sometl^ing of Andrew years ago. He was a 
bachelor, like myself, Miss Sturch. His Apparatus was 
out of order, like mine, dear Amelia. Not at all like his 
brother, the captain, I should suppose? And so she is 
married? A charming girl, I have no doubt. A charming 

girl !’ ’ 

“No better, truer, prettier girl in the world,” said the 
vicar. 

“A very lively^ energetic person,” remarked Miss 
Sturch. 

“How I shall miss her!” cried Miss Louisa. “Nobody 
else amused me as Rosamond did, when I was laid up with 
that last bad cold of mine. ’ ’ 

“She used to give us such nice little early supper-par- 
ties,” said Miss Amelia. 

“ She was the only girl I ever saw who was fit to play 
with boys,” said Master Robert. “ She could catch a ball, 
Mr. Phippen, sir, with one hand, and go down a slide with 
both her legs together.” 

“Bless me!” said Mr. Phippen. “What an extraordi- 
nary wife for a blind man ! You said he was blind from 
his birth, my dear doctor, did you not? Let me see, what 
was his name? You will not bear too hardly on my loss of 
memory. Miss Sturch? When indigestion has done with 
the body, it begins to prey on the mind. Mr. Frank Some- 
thing, was it not?” 

“No, no — Frankland,” answered the vicar, “Leonard 
Frankland. And not blind from his birth by any means. 
It is not much more than a year ago since he could see 
almost as well as any of us. ’ ’ 

“An accident, I suppose!” said Mr. Phippen. “You 
will excuse me if I take the arm-chair? — a partially reclin- 
ing posture is of great assistance to me after meals. So an 
accident happened to his eyes? Ah, what a delightfully 
easy chair to sit in!” 

“Scarcely an accident,” said Dr. Chennery. “ Leonard 
Frankland was a difficult child to bring up : great con- 
stitutional weakness, you know, at first. He seemed to 
get over that with time, and grew into a quiet, sedate, 
orderly sort of boy— as unlike my son there as possible- 
very amiable, and what you call easy to deal with. Well, 
he had a turn for mechanics (I am telling you all this to 
make you understand about his blindness), and, after 
veering from one occupation of that sort to another, he 
took at last to watch-making. Curious amusement for a 
boy; but anything that required delicacy of touch, and 
plenty of patience and perseverance, was just the thing to 
amuse and occupy Leonard. I always said to his father 
and mother, ‘ Get him off that stool, break his magnifying 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


37 


glasses, send him to me, and I’ll give him a bock at leap- 
frog, and teach him the use of a bat.’ But it v/as no use. 
His parents knew best, I suppose, and they said he must 
be humored. Well, things went on smoothly enough for 
some time, till he got another long illness — as I believe, 
from not taking exercise enough. 

“ As soon as he began to get round, back he went to his 
old watch- making occupations again. But the bad end of it 
all was coming. About the last work he did, poor fellow, 
was the repairing of my watch — here it is ; goes as regular 
as a steam-engine. I hadn’t got it back into my fob very 
long before I heard that he was getting a bad pain at the 
back of his head, and that he saw all sorts of moving spots 
before his eyes. ‘ String him up with lots of port wine, 
and give him three hours a day on the back of a quiet 
pony’— that was my advice. Instead of taking it, they 
sent for doctors from London, and blistered him behind the 
ears and between the shoulders, and drenched the lad with 
mercury, and moped him up in a dark rjoom. No use. The 
sight got worse and worse, flickered and flickered, and went 
out at last like the flame of a candle. His mother died— 
luckily for her, poor soul — before that happened. His father 
was half out of his mind ; took him to oculists in London 
and oculists in Paris. All they did was to call the blind - 
ness by a long Latin name, and to say that it was hopeless 
and useless to try an operation. Some of them said it was 
the result of the long weaknesses from which he had twice 
suffered after illness. Some said it was an apoplectic 
effusion in his brain. All of them shook their heads when 
they heard of the watch -making. So they brought him 
back home, blind ; blind he is now ; and blind he will re- 
main, poor, dear fellow, for the rest of his life. ’ ’ 

“You shock me; my dear Chennery, you shock me 
dreadfully,” said Mr. Phippen. “Especially when you 
state that theory about long weakness after illness. Good 
Heaven ! Why, I have had long weaknesses— I have got 
them now. Spots did he see before his eyes? I see spots, 
black spots, dancing black spots, dancing black bilious 
spots. Upon my word of honor, Chennery, this comes 
home to me — my sympathies are painfully acute — I feel 
this blind story in every nerve of my body; I do, indeed!” 

“You would hardly know that Leonard was blind, to 
look at him,” said Miss Louisa, striking into the conversa- 
tion with a view to restoring Mr. Phippen’s equanimity. 
“Except that his eyes look quieter than other people’s, 
there seems no difference in them now. Who was that 
famous character you told us about. Miss Sturch, who was 
blind, and didn’t show it any more than Leonard Frank 
land?” 


38 


THE DEAD SECRET 


“Milton, my love. I begged you to remember that be 
was the most famous of British epic poets,” answered Miss 
Sturch with suavity. “ He poetically describes his blind- 
ness as being caused by ‘so thick a drop serene.’ You 
shall read about it, Louisa. After we have had a little 
French, we will have a little Milton, this morning. Hush, 
love, your papa is speaking.” 

“Poor young Frankland!” said the vicar, warmly. 
“ That good, tender, noble creature I married him to this 
morning seems sent as a consolation to him in his afflic- 
tion. If any human being can make him happy for the 
rest of his life, Eosamond Treverton is the girl to do it. ” 

“She has made a sacrifice, ” said Mr. Phippen; “but I 
like her for that, having made a sacrifice myself in remain- 
ing single. It seems indispensable, indeed, on the score of 
humanity, that I should do so. How could I conscien- 
tiously inflict such a digestion as mine on a member of the 
fairer portion of creation? No; I am a sacrifice in my own 
proper person, and -I have a fellow-feeling for others who 
are like me. Did she cry much, Chennery, when yop were 
marrying her?” 

“Cry!” exclaimed the vicar, contemptuously. “Rosa- 
mond Treverton is not one of the puling, sentimental sort, 

I can tell you. A fine, buxom, warm-hearted, quick-tem- 
pered-girl, who looks what she means when she tells a man 
she is going to marry him. And, mind you, she has been 
tried. If she hadn’t loved him with all her heart and soul, 
she might have been free months ago to marry anybody she 
pleased. They were engaged long before this cruel afflic- 
tion befell young Frankland— the fathers, on both sides, 
having lived as near neighbors in these parts for years. 
Well, when the blindness came, Leonard at once offered to. 
release Rosamond from her engagement. You should have 
read the letter she wrote to him, Phippen, upon that. I 
don’t mind confessing that I blubbered like a baby over it 
when they showed it to me. I should have married them 
at once the instant I read it, but old Frankland was a 
fidgety, punctilious kind of man, and he insisted on a six 
months’ probation, so that she might be certain of know- 
ing her own mind. He died before the term was out, and 
that caused the marriage to be put off again. But no 
delays could alter Rosamond — six years, instead of six 
months, would not have changed her. There she was this 
morning as fond of that poor, patient blind fellow as she 
was the first day they were engaged. ‘ You shall never 
know a sad moment, Lenny, if I can help it, as long as 
you live ’ - -these were the first words she said to him when 
we all came out of church. ‘ I hear you, Rosamond,’ said 
J, ‘ And you shall judge me, too, doctor,’ says she, quick 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


89 


as ‘ We will come back to Long Becklej", and 

you shall ask Lenny if I have not kept my word,’ With 
that she gave me a kiss that you might have heard down 
here at the vicarage, bless her heart! We’ll drink her 
health after dinner, Miss Sturch— we’ll drink both their 
healths, Phippen, in a bottle of the best wine I have in my 
cellar.” 

“ In a glass of toast-and- water, so far as I am con- 
cerned, if you will allow me,” said Mr. Phippen, mourn- 
fully. ” But, my dear Chennery, when you were talking 
of the fathers of these two interesting young people, you 
spoke of their living as near neighbors here, at Long Beck- 
ley. My memory is impaired, as I am painfully aware; 
but I thought Captain Treverton was the eldest of the two 
brothers, and that he always lived, when he was on shore, 
at the family place in Cornwall?” 

“So he did,” returned the vicar, ‘ in his wife’s life-time. 
But since her death, which happened as long ago as the 
year ’twenty -nine — let me see, we are now in the year 
’forty -four — and that makes ” 

The vicar stopped for an instant to calculate, and looked 
at Miss Sturch. 

“ Fifteen years ago, sir,” said Miss Sturch, offering the 
accommodation of a little simple subtraction to the vicar, 
with her blandest smile. 

“Of course,” continued Dr. Chennery. “Well, since 
Mrs. Treverton died, fifteen years ago, Captain Treverton 
has never been near Porthgenna Tower. And, what is 
more, Phippen, at the first opportunity he could get, he 
sold the place — sold it, out and out, mine, fisheries, and all 
—for forty thousand pounds.” 

“ You don’t say sol’ exclaimed Mr. Phippen. “ Did he 
find the air unhealthy? I should think the local produce, 
in the way of food, must be coarse now, in those barba- 
rous regions? Who bought the place?” 

“Leonard Frankland’s father,” said the vicar. “ It is 
rather a long story, that sale of Porthgenna Tower, with 
some curious circumstances involved in it. Suppose we 
take a turn in the garden, Phippen? I’ll tell you all about 
it over my morning cigar. Miss Sturch, if you want me, 
I shall be on the lawn somewhere. Girls 1 mind you know 
your lessons. Bob! remember that I’ve got a cane in the 
jaall, and a birch-rod in my dressing-room. Come, Phip- 
pen, rouse up out of that arm-chair. You won’t say no to 
a turn in the garden?” 

“ My dear fellow, I will say yes — if you will kindly lend 
me an umbrella, and allow me to carry my camp-stool in 
my hand,” said Mr. Phippen. “I am too weak to en- 
counter the sun, and I can’t go far without sitting down. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


4u 

The moment I feel fatigued, Miss Sturch, I openly camp- 
stool, and sit down anywhere, without the slightest regard 
for appearances. I am ready, Chennery, whenever you 
.are- -equally ready, my good friend, for the garden and 
the story about the sale of Porthgenna Tower. You said 
it was a curious story, did you not?’’ 

“I said there were some curious circumstances connected 
with it,” replied the vicar. “And when you hear about 
them, I think you will say so too. Come along 1 you will 
find your camp-stool, and a choice of all the umbrellas in 
the house, in the hall. ” 

With those words. Dr. Chennery opened his cigar-case, 
and led the way out of the breakfast-parlor. 


CHAPTEK II. 

THE sale: op popthgenna tower. 

“Sow charming! how pastoral! how exquisitely sooth- 
ing!” said Mr. Phippen, sentimentally surveying the lawn 
at the back of the vicarage house, under the shadow of the 
lightest umbrella he could pick out of the hall. “Three 
years have passed, Chennery, since I last stood on this 
lawn. There is the window of your old study, where I had 
my attack of heart -burn last time — in the strawberry sea- 
son: don’t you remember? Ay! and there is the school- 
room! Shall I ever forget dear Miss Sturch coming to me 
out of that room — a ministering angel with soda and ginger 
— so comforting, so sweetly anxious about stirring it up, so 
unaffectedly grieved that there was no sal-volatile in the 
house! I do so enjoy these pleasant recollections, Chen- 
nery ; they are as great a luxury to me as your cigar is to 
you. Could you walk on the other side, my dear fellow? 
I like the smell, but the smoke is a little too much for me. 
Thank you. And now about the story? What was the 
name of the old place-— I am so interested in it— -it began 
with a P, surely?” 

“ Porthgenna Tower,” said the vicar. 

“Exactly,” rejoined Mr. Phippen, shifting the umbrella 
tenderly from one shoulder to the other. “And what in 
the world made Captain Treverton sell Porthgenna Tower?” 

“ I believe the reason was that he could not endure the 
place after the death of his^wife,” answered Dr. Chennery. 
“The estate, you know, has never been entailed; so the 
captain had no difficulty in parting with it, except, of 
course, the difficulty of finding a purchaser.” 

“Why not his brother?” asked Mr. Phippen. “Why 
not our eccentric friend, Andrew Treverton?” 

“ Don’t call him my friend,” said the vicar. “A mean, 
groveling, cynical, selfish old wretch ! It’s no use shaking 


THE DEAD SECRET 


41 


your head, Phippen, and trying to look shocked. I know 
Andrew Treverton’s early history as well as you do. I 
know that he was treated with the basest ingratitude by a 
college friend, who took all he had to give, and swindled 
him at last in the grossest manner. I know all about that. 

But one instance of ingratitude does not justify a man in 
shutting himself up from society, and railing against all 
mankind as a disgrace to the earth they walk on. I my- 
self have heard the old brute say that the greatest bene- 
factor to our generation would be a second Herod, who 
could prevent another generation from succeeding it. 
Ought a man who can talk in that way to be the friend of 
any human being with the slightest respect for his species 
or himself?” 

“My friend!” said Mr. Phippen, catching the vicar by 
the arm, and mysteriously lowering his voice— “ my dear 
and reverend friend ! I admire your honest indignation 
against the utterer of that exceedingly misanthropical sen- 
timent; but — I confide this to you, Chennery, in the strict 
est secrecy — there are moments — morning moments gener- 
ally — when my digestion is in such a state that I have 
actually agreed with that annihilating person, Andrew 
Treverton I I have woke up with my tongue like a cinder 
—I have crawled to the glass and looked at it — and I have 
said to myself, ‘Let there be an end of the human race 
rather than a continuance of this!’ ” 

“Pooh! pooh!” cried the vicar, receiving Mr. Phippen’s 
confession with a burst of irreverent laughter. “ Take a 
glass of cool snfall beer next time your tongue is in that 
state, and you will pray for a continuance of the brewing 
part of the human race, at any rate. But let us go back 
to Porthgenna Tower or I shall never get on with ray 
story. When Captain Treverton had once made up his 
mind to sell the place, I have no doubt that, under ordi- 
nary circumstances, he would have thought of offering it 
to his brother, with a view, of course, to keeping the estate 
in the family. Andrew was rich enough to have bought is 
it; for, though he got nothing at his father’s death but the my 
old gentleman’s rare collection of books, he inherited his mo- 
mother’s fortune, as the second son. However, as things 'ous 
were at that time (and are still, I am sorry to say), the 
captain could make no personal offers of any kind to An- 
drew; for the two were not then, and are not now, on 
speaking, or even on writing terms. It is a shocking thing 
to say, but tlie worst quarrel of the kind I ever heard of is 
the quarrel between those two brothers.” 

“ Pardon me, my dear friend,” said Mr. Phippen, open- 
ing his camp-stool, which had hitherto dangled by its 
silken tassel from the hooked handle of the umbrella. 


42 


THE DEAD SECRET 


“ May I pit down before you go any further? I am getting 
a little excited about this part of the story, and I dare not 
fatigue myself. Pray go on. I don’t think the legs of my 
camp-stool will make holes in the lawn. I am so light— a 
mere skeleton, in fact. Do go on!” 

“You must have heard,” pursued the vicar, “ that Cap- 
tain Treverton, when he was advanced in life, married an 
actress — rather a violent temper, I believe ; but a person of 
spotless character, and as fond of her husband as a woman 
could be ; therefore, according to my view of it, a very good 
wife for him to marry. However, the captain’s friends, of 
course, made the usual senseless outcry, and the captain’s 
brother, as the only near relation, took it on himself to at- 
tempt breaking off the marriage in the most offensively in- 
delicate way. Failing in that, and hating the poor woman 
like poison, he left his brother’s house, saying, among 
many other savage speeches, one infamous thing about the 
bride, which — which, upon my honor, Phippen, I am 
ashamed to repeat. Whatever the words were, they were 
unluckily carried to Mrs. Treverton’s ears, and they were 
of the kind that no woman — let alone a quick-tempered 
woman like the captain’s wife — ever forgives. An inter- 
view followed between the two brothers — and it led, as you 
may easily imagine, to very unhappy results. They parted 
in the most deplorable manner. 

“The captain declared, in the heat of his passion, that 
Andrew had never had one generous impulse in his heart 
since he was born, and that he would die without one 
kind feeling toward any living soul in the world. Andrew 
replied that, if he had no heart, he had a memory, and 
that he should remember those farewell words as long as 
he lived. So they separated. Twice afterward the cap- 
tain made overtures of reconciliation. The first time 
when his daughter Rosamond was born; the second time 
when Mrs. Treverton died. On each occasion the elder 
brother wrote to say that, if the younger would retract 
the atrocious words he had spoken against his sister in- 
law, every atonement should be offered to him for the 
^^harsh language which the captain had used, in the hasti- 
f'liess of anger, when they last met. No answer Wcis re- 
ceived from Andrew to either letter; and the estrange- 
ment between the two brothers has-continued to the pres- 
ent time. You understand now why Captain Treverton 
could not privately consult Andrew’s inclinations before 
lie publicly announced his intention of parting with Porth- 
genna Tower. ’ ’ 

Although Mr. Phippen declared, in answer to this ap 
peal, that he understood perfectly, and although he begged 
with the utmost politeness that the vicar would go on, his 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


43 


attention seemed, for the moment, to be entirely absorbed 
in inspecting the legs of his camp-stool, and in ascertain- 
ing what impression they made on the vicarage lawn. Dr. 
Chennery’s own interest, however, in the circumstances 
that he was relating, seemed sufficiently strong to make 
up for any transient lapse of attention on the part of his 
guest. After a few vigorous puffs at his cigar (which had 
been several times in imminent danger of going out while 
he was speaking), he went on with his narrative in these 
words : 

“ Well, the house, the estate, the mine, and the fisheries 
of Porthgenna were all publicly put up for sale a few 
months after Mrs. Treverton’s death; but no offers were 
made for the property which it was possible to accept. The 
ruinous state of the house, the bad cultivation of the land, 
legal difficulties in connection with the mine, and quarter- 
day difficulties in the collection of the rents, all contributed 
to make Porthgenna what the auctioneers would call a bad 
lot to dispose of. Failing to sell the place, Captain Trever- 
ton could not be prevailed on to change his mind and live 
there again. The death of his wife almost broke his heart 
—for he was, by all accounts, just as fond of her as she 
had been of him— and the very sight of the place that was 
associated with the greatest affliction of his life became 
hateful to him. He removed, with his little girl and a 
relative of Mrs. Treverton, who was her governess, to our 
neighborhood, and rented a pretty little cottage across the 
church fields. The house nearest to it was inhabited at 
that time by Leonard Frankland’s father and mother. The 
new neighbors soon became intimate; and thus it hap- 
pened that the couple whom I have been marrying this 
morning were brought up together as children, and fell in 
love with each other almost before they were out of their 
pinafores.” 

“Chennery, my dear fellow, I don’t look as if I was sit- 
ting all on one side, do I?” cried Mr. Phippen, suddenly 
breaking into the vicar’s narrative, with a look of alarm. 
“ I am shocked to interrupt you; but surely your grass is 
amazingly soft in this part of the country. One of my 
camp-stool legs is getting shorter and shorter every mo- 
ment. I’m drilling a hole! I’m toppling over ! Gracious 
heavens ! I feel myself going— I shall be down, Chennery ; 
upon my life, I shall be down!” 

“Stuff!” cried the vicar, pulling up first Mr. Phippen. 
and then Mr. Phippen’s camp stool, which had rooted itself 
in the grass, all on one side. “ Here, come on to the 
gravel walk; you can’t drill holes in that. What’s the 
matter now?” 

“Palpitations,” said Mr. Phippen, dropping his um- 


44 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


brella, and placing his hand over his heart, “and bile. I 
see those black spots again — those infernal, lively black' 
spots dancing before my eyes. Chennery, suppose you 
consult some agricultural friend about the quality of your 
grass. Take my word for it, your lawn is softer than it 
ought to be. Lawn!” repeated Mr. Phippen to himself, 
contemptuously, as he turned round to pick up his um- 
brella. “ It isn’t a lawn — it is a bog!” 

“There, sit down,” said the vicar, “and don’t pay the 
palpitations and the black spots the compliment of bestow- 
ing the smallest attention on them. Do you want anything 
to drink? Shall it be physic, or beer, or what!” 

“ No, no! I am so unwilling to give trouble,” answered 
Mr. Phippen. “I would rather suffer — rather, a great 
deal. I think if you would go on with your story, Chen- 
nery, it would compose me. I have not the faintest idea 
of what led to it, but I think you were saying something 
interesting on the subject of pinafores !” 

“Nonsense!” said Dr. Chennery. “I was only telling 
you of the fondness between the two children who have 
now grown up to be man and wife. And I was going onto 
tell you that Captain Treverton, shortly after he settled in 
our neighborhood, took to the active practice of his pro- 
fession again. Nothing else seemed to fill up the gap that 
the loss of Mrs. Treverton had made in his life. Having 
good interest with the admiralty, he can always get a ship 
when he applies for one ; and up to the present time, with 
intervals on shore, he has resolutely stuck to the sea — 
though he is getting, as his daughter and his friends think, 
rather too old for it now. Don’t look puzzled, Phippen; I 
am not going so wide of the mark as you think. These are 
some of the necessary particulars that must be stated first. 
And now they are comfortably disposed of, I can get round 
at last to the main part of my story— the sale of Porth- 
genna Tower. What is it now? Do you want to get up 
again?” 

Yes, Mr. Phippen did want to get up again, for the pur- 
pose of composing the palpitations and dispersing the black 
spots, by trying the experiment of a little gentle exercise. 
He was most unwilling to occasion any trouble, but would 
his worthy friend Chennery give him an arm, and carry 
the camp stool, and walk slowly in the direction of the 
sclioolroom window, so as to keep Miss Sturch within easy 
hailing distance, in case it became necessary to try the last 
resource of taking a composing draught? The vicar, whose 
inexhaustible good nature was proof against every trial 
that Mr. Phippen’s dyspeptic infirmities could inflict on it, 
complied with all these requests, and went on with his 
story, unconsciously adopting the tone and manner of a 


THE DEAD SECRET, 45 

good-humored parent who was doing his best to soothe the 
‘temper of a fretful child. 

“I told you,” he said, “that the elder Mr. Frankland 
and Captain Treverton were near neighbors here. They 
had not been long acquainted before the one found out from 
the other that Porthgenna Tower was for sale. On first 
hearing this, old Frankland asked a few questions about 
the place, but said not a word on the subject of purchasing 
it. Soon after that the captain got a ship and went to sea. 
During his absence old Frankland privately set off for Corn- 
wall to look at the estate, and to find out all he could about 
its advantages and defects from the persons left in charge 
of the house and lands. He said nothing when he came 
back, until Captain Treverton returned from his first 
cruise ; and then the old gentleman spoke out one mornings 
in his quiet, decided way. 

“‘Treverton,’ said he, ‘if you will sell Porthgenna 
Tower at the price at which you bought it in, when you 
tried to dispose of it by auction, write to your lawyer, and 
tell him to take the title-deeds to mine, and ask for the 
purchase-money. ’ 

“ Captain Treverton was naturally a little astonished at 
the readiness of this offer; but people like myself, who 
knew old Frankland’s history, were not so surprised. His 
fortune had been made by trade, and he was foolish 
enough to be always a little ashamed of acknowledging 
that one simple and creditable fact. The truth was, that 
his ancestors had been landed gentry of importance before 
the time of the civil war, and the old gentleman’s great 
ambition was to sink the merchant in the landed grandee, 
and to leave his son to succeed him in the character of a 
squire of large estate and great county influence. He was 
willing to devote half his fortune to accomplish this 
scheme ; but half his fortune would not buy him such an 
estate as he wanted, in an important agricultural county 
like ours. Rents are high, and land is made the most of 
with us. An estate as extensive as the estate at Porth- 
genna would fetch more than double the money which 
Captain Treverton could venture to ask for it, if it was sit- 
uated in these parts. Old Frankland was well aware of 
that fact, and attached all possible importance to it. Be- 
sides, there was something in the feudal look of Porth- 
genna Tower, and in the right over the mine and fisheries, 
which the purchase of the estate included, that flattered 
his notions of restoring the family greatness. 

“Here he and his son after him could lord it, as he 
thought, on a large scale, and direct at their sovereign 
will and pleasure the industry of hundreds of poor people, 
scattered along the coast, or huddled together in the little 


46 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


villages inland. This was a tempting prospect, and it 
could be secured for forty thousand pounds— which was 
just ten thousand pounds less than he had made up his 
mind to give^ when he first determined to metamorphose 
himself from a plain merchant into a magnificent landed 
gentleman. People who knew these facts were, as I have 
said, not much surprised at Mr. Frankland’s readiness to 
purchase Porthgenna Tower ; and Captain Treverton, it is 
hardly necessary to say, was not long in clinching the bar- 
gain on his side. The estate changed hands; and away 
went old Frankland, with a tail of wiseacres from London 
at his heels, to work the mine and fisheries on new scien- 
tific principles, and to beautify the old house from top to 
bottom with brand-new mediaeval decorations, under the 
direction of a gentleman who was said to be an architect, 
but who looked, to my mind, the very image of a popish 
priest in disguise. Wonderful plans and projects were 
they not? And how do you think they succeeded?” 

“ Do tell me, my dear fellow,” was^ the answer that fell 
from Mr. Phippen’s lips. “ I wonder whether Miss Sturch 
keeps a bottle of camphor julep in the family medicine- 
chest?” was the thought that passed through Mr. Phippen’s 
mind. 

“Tell you !” exclaimed the vicar. “Why, of course, 
every one of his plans turned out a complete failure. His 
Cornish tenantry received him as an interloper. The an- 
tiquity of his family made no impression upon them. It 
might be an old family, but it was not a Cornish family, 
and, therefore, it was of no importance in their eyes. 
They would have gone to the world’s end for the Trever- 
tons; but not a man would move a step out of his way for 
the Franklands. As for the mine, it seemed to be inspired 
with the same mutinous spirit that possessed the tenantry. 
The wiseacres from London blasted in all directions oh the 
profoundest scientific principles, and brought about six- 
penny-worth of ore to the surface for every five pounds 
spent in getting it up. The fisheries turned out little bet- 
ter. A new plan for curing pilchards, which was a marvel 
of economy in theory, proved to be a perfect phenomenon 
of extravagance in practice. The only item of luck in old 
Frankland’s large sum of misfortunes was produced by his 
quarreling in good time with the mediaeval architect, who 
was like a popish priest in disguise. This fortunate event 
saved the new owner of Porthgenna all the money he 
might otherwise have spent in restoring and redecorating 
the whole suit of rooms on the north side of the house, 
which had been left to go to rack and ruin for more than 
fifty years past, and which remain in their old neglected 
condition to this day. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


47 


“To make a long story short, after uselessly spending 
more thousands of pounds at Porthgenna than I should 
like to reckon up, old Frankland gave in at last, left the 
place in disgust to the care of his steward, who was 
charged never to lay out another farthing on it, and re- 
turned to this neighborhood. Being in high dudgeon, and 
happening to catch Captain Treverton on shore when he 
got back, the first thing he did was to abuse Porthgenna 
and all the people about it a little too vehemently in the 
captain’s presence. This led to a coolness between the two 
neighbors, which might have ended in the breaking off of 
all intercourse, but for the children on either side, who 
would see each other just as often as ever, and who ended, 
by dint of willful persistency, in putting an end to the 
estrangement between the fathers by making it look simply 
ridiculous. Here, in my opinion, lies the most curious 
part of the story. Important family interests depended on 
those two young people falling in love with each other ; 
and, wonderful to relate, that (as you know after my con- 
fession at breakfast-time) was exactly what they did. 
Here is a case of the most romantic love-match, which is 
also the marriage, of all things, that the parents on both 
sides had the strongest worldly interest in promoting. 
Shakespeare may say what he pleases, the course of true 
love does run smooth sometimes. Never was the marriage- 
service performed to better purpose than when I read it 
this morning. The estate being entailed on Leonard, Cap- 
tain Treverton’ s daughter now goes back, in the capacity 
of mistress, to the house and lands which her father sold. 
Rosamond being an only child, the purchase- money of 
Porthgenna, which old Frankland once lamented as money 
thrown away, will now, when the captain dies, be the mar- 
riage-portion of young Frankland ’s wife. I don’t know 
what you think of the beginning and middle of my story, 
Phippen, but the end ought to satisfy you, at any rate. 
Did you ever hear of a bride and bridegroom who started 
with fairer prospects in life than our bride and bridegroom 
of to-day?” 

Before Mr. Phippen could make any reply, Miss Sturch 
put her head out of the schoolroom window ; and seeing 
the two gentlemen approaching, beamed on them with her 
invariable smile. Then addressing the vicar, said in her 
softest tones : 

“ I regret extremely to trouble you, sir, but I find Rob- 
ert very intractable this morning with his multiplication 
table.” 

“ Where does he stick now?” asked Dr. Chennery. 

“ At seven times eight, sir,” replied Miss Sturch, 


48 THE EEAD SECEET. 

“ Bob !” shouted the vicar, through the window. “Seven 
times eight?” 

“ Forty- three,” answered the whimpering voice of the 
invisible Bob. 

“You shall have one^ more chance before I get my 
cane,” said Dr. Chennery. “ Now, then, look out! Seven 
times ” 

“My dear, good friend,” interposed Mr. Phippen, “if 
you cane that very unhappy boy he will scream. My 
nerves have been tried once this morning by the camp-stool. 
I shall be totally shattered if I hear screams. Give me 
time to get out of the way, and allow me also to spare dear 
Miss Sturch the sad spectacle of correction (so shocking to 
sensibilities like hers) by asking her for a little camphor 
julep, and so giving her an excuse for getting out of the 
way like me. I think I could have done without the cam-- 
phor julep under any other circumstances; but I ask for it 
unhesitatingly now, as much for Miss Sturch’s sake as for 
the sake of my own poor nerves. Have you got camphor 
julep, Miss Sturch ? Say yes, I beg and entreat, and give 
me an opportunity of escorting you out of the way of the 
screams. ’ ’ 

While Miss Sturch — whose well-trained sensibilities were 
proof against the longest paternal caning and the loudest 
filial acknowledgment of it in the way of screams — tripped 
up-stairs to fetch the camphor julep, as smiling and self - 
possessed as ever. Master Bob, finding himself left alone 
with his sisters in the schoolroom, sidled up to the young- 
est of the two, produced from the pocket of his trousers 
three frowsy, acidulated drops looking very much the 
worse for wear, and attacking Miss Amelia on the weak, 
or greedy side of her character, artfully offered the drops 
in exchange for information on the subject of seven times 
eight. “ You like ’em?” whispered Bob. “Oh, don’t H” 
answered Amelia. ‘ ‘ Seven times eight ?’ ’ asked Bob. ‘ ‘ Fif- 
ty-six,” answered Amelia. “Sure?” said Bob. “Cer- 
tain,” said Amelia. The drops changed hands, and the 
catastrophe of the domestic drama changed with them. 
Just as Miss Sturch appeared with the camphor julep at 
the garden door, in the character of medical Hebe to Mr. 
Phippen, her intractable pupil showed himself to his father 
at the schoolroom window, in the character, arithmetically 
speaking, of a reformed son. The cane reposed for the 
day; and Mr. Phippen drank his glass of camphor julep 
with a mind at ease on the twin subjects of Miss Sturch’s 
sensibilities and Master Bob’s screams. 

“Most gratifying in every way,” said the Martyr to 
Dyspepsia, smacking his lips with great relish, as he 
drained the last drops out of the glass. “ My nerves are 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


49 


spared, Miss Sturch’s feelings are spared, and the dear 
boy’s back is spared. You have no idea how relieved I 
feel, Chennery. Whereabouts were we in that delightful 
story of yours when this little domestic interruption oc- 
curred?” 

“At the end of it. to be sure,” said the vicar. “The 
bride and bridegroom are some miles on their way by this 
time, to spend the honey-moon at St.^Swithin’s-on-Sea. 
Captain Treverton is only left behind for a day. He re- 
ceived his sailing orders on Monday, and he will be off to 
Portsmouth to-morrow morning to take command of his 
ship. Though he won’t admit it in plain words, I happen 
to know that Rosamond has persuaded him to make this 
his last cruise. She has a plan for getting him back to 
Porthgenna, to live there with her husband, which I hope 
and believe will succeed. The west rooms at the old 
house, in one of which Mrs. Treverton died, are not to be 
used at all by the young married couple. They have en- 
gaged* a builder— a sensible, practical man, this time— to 
survey the neglected north rooms, with a view to their re- 
decoration and thorough repair in every way. This part of 
the house cannot possibly be associated with any melan- 
choly recollections in Captain Treverton’s mind, for neither 
he nor any one else ever entered it during the period of his 
residence at Porthgenna. Considering the change in the 
look of the place which this project of repairing the north 
rooms is sure to produce, and taking into account also the 
softening effect of time on all painful recollections, I should 
say there was a fair prospect of Captain Treverton’s re- 
turning to pass the end of his days among his old tenantry. 
It will be a great chance for Leonard Frankland if he does, 
for he would be sure to dispose the people at Porthgenna 
Icjndly toward their new master. Introduced among his 
Cornish tenants under Captain Treverton’s wing, Leonard 
is sure to get on well with them, provided he abstains from 
showing too much of the family pride which he has in- 
herited from his father. He is a little given to overrate 
the advantages of birth and the importance of rank~but 
that is really the only noticeable defect in his character. 
In all other respects I can honestly say of him that he de- 
serves what lie has got — the best wife in the world. What 
a life of happiness, Phippen, seems to be awaiting these 
lucky young people I It is a bold thing to say of any mor- 
tal creatures, but, look as far as I may, not a cloud can I 
see anywhere on their future prospects. ” 

“ You excellent creature!” exclaimed Mr. Phippen, affec- 
tionately squeezing the vicar’s hand. “ How I enjoy hear- 
ing you! how 1 luxuriate in your bright view of life!” 


50 


THE DEAD SECRET 


And is it not the true view— especially in the case of 
young Franklaiid and his wife?” inquired the vicar. 

“ Jf you ask me,” said Mr. Phippen, with a mournful 
smile, and a philosophic calmness of manner, ” I can only 
answer that the direction of a man’s speculative views 
depends — not to mince the matter — on the state of his se- 
cretions. ' Your biliary secretions, dear friend, are all 
right, and you tajie bright views. My biliary secretions 
are all wrong, and I take dark views. You look at the 
future prospects of this young married couple, and say 
there is no cloud over them. I don’t dispute the asser- 
tion, not having the pleasure of knowing either bride or 
bridegroom. But I look up at the sky over our heads — I 
remember that there was not a cloud on it when we fir^t 
entered the garden— I now see, just over those two trees 
growing so close together, a cloud that has appeared un- 
expectedly from nobody knows where — and I draw my 
own conclusions. Such,” said Mr. Phippen, ascending the 
garden steps on his way to the house, “ is my philosophy. 
It may be tinged with bile, but it is philosophy for all 
that.” 

” All the philosophy in the world,” said the vicar, fol- 
lowing his guest up the steps, ” will not shake my convic- 
tion that Leonard Frankland and his wife have a happy 
future before them.” 

Mr. Phippen laughed, and, waiting on the steps till his 
host joined him, took Dr. Chennery’s arm in tbe friend- 
liest manner. 

” You have told a charming story, Chennery,” he said, 
” and you have ended it with a charming sentiment. But, 
my dear friend, though your healthy mind (influenced 
by an enviably easy digestion) despises my bilious phi- 
losophy, don’t quite forget the cloud over the two trees. 
Look up at it now— it is getting darker and bigger al- 
ready.” 


CHAPTER III. 

THE BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM. 

Under the roof of a. widowed mother. Miss Mowlem 
lived humbly at St. Swithin’s-on-Sea. In the spring of the 
year eighteen hundred and forty-four, the heart of Miss 
Mowlem’ s widowed mother was gladdened by a small 
legacy. Turning over in her mind the various uses to 
which the money might be put, the discreet old lady 
finally decided on investing it in furniture, on fitting up 
the first floor and the second floor of her house in the best 
taste, and on hanging a card in the parlor window to in- 
form tjie public that she had furnished apartments to let. 


THE DEAD SECnET, 


51 


By the summer the apartments vrere ready, and the card 
was put. up. It had hardly been exhibited a week before a 
dignified personage in black applied to look at the rooms, 
expressed himself as satisfied with their appearance, and 
engaged them for a month Certain, for a newly married 
lady and gentleman, who might be expected to take posses- 
sion in a few days. The dignified personage in black was 
Captain Treverton’s servant, and the lady and gentleman, 
who arrived in due time to take possession, were Mr, and 
Mrs. Frankland. 

The natural interest in which Mrs. Mowlem felt in her 
youthful first lodgers was necessarily vivid in its nature; 
but it was apathy itself compared to the sentimental inter- 
est which her daughter took in observing the manners and 
customs of the lady and gentleman in their capacity of 
bride and bridegroom. From the moment when Mr, and 
Mrs. Frankland entered the house, Miss Mowlem began to* 
study them with all the ardor of an industrious scholar 
who attacks a new branch of knowledge. At every spare’ 
moment of the day, this industrious young lady occupied 
herself in stealing up-stairs to collect observations, and iil 
running down-stairs to communicate them to her mother. 
By the time the married couple had been in the house a 
week. Miss Mowlem had made such good use of her eyes, 
ears, and opportunities that she could have written a seven 
days’ diary of the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland with 
the truth and minuteness of Mr. Samuel Pepys himself. 

But. learn as much as we may, the longer we live the 
more information there is to acquire. Seven days’ patient 
accumulation of facts in connection with the honey-moon 
had not placed Miss Mowlem beyond the reach of further 
discoveries. On the morning of the eighth day, after bring- 
ing down the breakfast tray, this observing spinster stole 
up-stairs again, according to custom, to drink at the spring 
of knowledge through the key -hole channel of the draw- 
ing-room door. After an absence of five minutes she de- 
scended to the kitchen, breathless with excitement, to an- 
nounce a fresh discovery in connection with Mr. and Mrs» 
Frankland to her venerable mother. 

“ Whatever do you think she’s doing, now?” cried Miss 
Mowlem, with widely opened eyes and highly elevated 
hands. 

” Nothing that’s useful,” answered Mrs. Mowlem, with 
sarcastic readiness. 

“She’s actually sitting on his knee! Mother, did you 
ever sit on father’s knee when you were married?” 

“Certainly not, my dear. When me and your poor 
father married, we were neither of us flighty young peq 
pie, and we knew better. ” 


52 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


“ She’s got her head on his shoulder,” proceeded Miss 
Mowlem, more and more agitatedly, “ and her anus round 
his neck — both arms, mother, as tight as can be.” 

“I won’t believe it,” exclaimed Mrs. Mowlem, indig- 
nantly. “ A lady like her, with riches, and accomplish- 
ments, and all that, demean herself like a house- n:iaid with 
a sweetheart. Don’t tell me, I won’t believe it!” 

It was true though, for all that. There were plenty of 
chairs in Mrs. Mowlem’s drawing-room; there were three 
beautifully bound books on Mrs. Mowlem’s Pembroke table 
(the Antiquities of St. Swithin’s, Smallridge’s Sermons, 
and Klopstock’s Messiah in English prose)— Mrs. Frank- 
land might have sat on purple morocco leather, stuffed 
with the best horse-hair, might have informed and soothed 
her mind with archaeological diversions, with orthodox 
native theology, and with devotional poetry of foreign 
origin — and yet, so frivolous is the nature of woman, she 
was perverse enough to prefer doing nothing, and perch- 
ing herself uncomfortably on her husband’s knee ! 

She sat for some time in the undignified position which 
]\Iiss Mowlem had described with such graphic correctness 
to her mother— then drew back a little, raised her head, 
and looked earnestly into the quiet, meditative face of the 
blind man. 

“Lenny, you are very silent this morning,” she said. 
“What are you thinking about? If you will tell me all 
your thoughts, I will tell you all mine,” 

“ Would you really care to hear all my thoughts?” asked 
Leonard. 

“ Yes; all. I shall be jealous of any thoughts that you 
keep to yourself. Tell me what you were thinking of just 
now! Me?” 

“ Not exactly of you.” 

“More shame for you. Are you tired of me in eight 
days? I have not thought of anybody but you ever since 
we have been here. Ah! you laugh. Oh, Lenny, I do 
love you so; how can I think of anybody but you? No! J 
sha’n’t kiss you. I want to know what you were thinking 
about first.” 

“Of a dream, Kosamond, that I had last night. Ever 

since the first days of my blindness Why, I thought 

you were not going to kiss me again till I had told you 
what I was thinking about!” 

“ I can’t help kissing you, Lenny, when you talk of the 
loss of your sight. Tell me, my pooi* love, do I help to 
make up for that loss? Are you happier than you used to 
be? and have I some share in making that happiness, 
though it is ever so little?” 

She turned her head away as she spoke, but Leonard was 


THE DEAD SECRET, 5S 

too quick for her. His inquiring fingers touched her 
cheek. “ Rosamond, you are* crying,” he said. 

“ I crying,” she answered, with a sudden assumption of 
gayety. “No,” she continued, after a moment’s pause. 
“ I will never deceive you, love, even in the veriest trifle. 
My eyes serve for both of us now, don’t they? you depend 
on me for all that your touch fails to tell you, and I must 
never be unworthy of my trust — must I? I did cry, Lenny 
—but only a very little. I don’t know how it was, but I 
never, in all my life, seemed to pity you and feel for you as 
I did just at that moment. Never mind, I’ve done now. 
Go on— do go on with what you were going to say.” 

“I was going to say, Rosamond, that I have observed 
one curious thing about myself since I lost my sight. I 
dream a great deal, but I never dream of myself as a blind 
man. I often visit in my dreams places that I saw and 
people whom I knew when I had my sight, and though I 
feel as much myself, at those visionary times, as I am now 
when I am wide awake, I never by any chance feel blind. 
I wander about all sorts of old walks in my sleep, and 
never grope my way. I talk to all sorts of old friends in 
my sleep, and see the expression in their faces which, wak- 
ing, I shall never see again. I have lost my sight more 
than a year now, and yet it was like the shock of a new 
discovery to me to wake up last night from my dream, and 
remember suddenly that I was blind. ’ ’ 

“What dream was it, Lenny?” 

“ Only a dream of the place where I first met you when 
we were both children. I saw the glen, as it was j^ears 
ago, with the great twisted roots of the trees, and the 
blackberry-bushes twining about them in a still, shadowed 
light that came through thick leaves from the rainy sky. 
I saw the mud on the walk in the middle of the glen, with 
the marks of the cows’ hoofs in some places, and the sharp 
circles in others where some countrywomen had been 
lately trudging by on pattens. I saw the muddy water 
running down on either side of the path after the shower; 
and I saw you, Rosamond, a naughty girl, all covered with 
clay and wet — just as you were in the reality — soiling your 
bright blue pelisse and your pretty little chubby hands by 
making a dam to stop the running water, and laughing at 
the indignation of your nurse-maid when she tried to pull 
you away and take you home. I saw all that exactly as it 
really was in the bygone time; but, strangely enough, I did 
not see myself as the boy I then was. You were a little 
girl, and the glen was in its old neglected state, and yet, 
though I was all in the past so far, I was in the present as 
regarded myself. Throughout the whole dream I was 
uneasily conscious of being a grown man— of being, in 


54 THE DEAD SECRET. 

short, exactly what I am now, excepting' always that I 
was not blind.” 

“ What a memory you must have, love, to be, able to re 
call all those little ciicumstances after the years that have 
passed since that wet day in the glen ! How well you 
recollect what I was as a child ! Do you remember in the 
same vivid way what I looked like a year ago when you 
saw me — oh, Lenny, it almost breaks my heart to think of 
it!— when you saw me for the last time?” 

“ Do I remember, Eosamond ! My last look at your face 
has painted your portrait in my memory in colors that can 
never change. I have many" pictures in my mind, but 
your picture is the clearest and brightest of all.” 

“ And it is the picture of me at my best— painted in my 
youth, dear, when my face was always confessing how I 
loved you, though my lips said nothing. There is some 
consolation in that thought. When years have passed over 
us both, Lenny, and when time begins to set his mark on 
me, you will not say to yourself, ‘ My Rosamond is begin- 
ning to fade ; she grows less and less like what she was 
when I married her.’ I shall never grow old, love, for 
you ! The bright young picture in your mind will still be 
my picture when my cheeks are wrinkled and my hair is 
gray.” 

“ Still your picture— always the same, grow as old as I 
may.” 

“ But are you sure it is clear in every part? Are there 
no doubtful lines, no unfinished corners anywhere? I have 
not altered yet since you saw me — I am just what I was a 
year ago. Suppose I ask you what I am like now, could 
you tell me without making a mistake?” 

” Try me.” 

“May I? You shall be put through a complete cate- 
chism! I don’t tire you sitting on your knee, do I? Well, 
in the first place, how tall am I when we both stand up side 
by side?” 

“You just reach to my ear.” 

“ Quite right, to begin with. Now for the next question. 
What does my hair look like in your portrait?” 

“It is dark brown — there is a great deal of it — audit 
grows rather too low on your for.ehead for the taste of some 
people ” 

“ Never mind about ‘some people;’ does it grow too low 
for your taste?” 

“ Certainly not. I like it to grow low; I like all those 
little natural waves that it makes against your forehead; I 
like it taken back, as you wear it, in plain bands, which 
leave your ears and your cheeks visible; and above all 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


55 


things, I like that big glossy knot that it makes where it is 
all gathered up together at the back of your head.” 

“ Oh, Lenny, how well you remember me, so far I Now 
go a little lower. ’ ' 

” A little lower is down to your eyebrows. They are 
very nicely shaped eyebrows in my picture ” 

“Yes, but they have a fault. Come! tell me what the 
fault is.” 

“They are not quite so strongly marked as they might 
be.” 

“Eight again! And my eyes?” 

“ Brown eyes, large eyes, wakeful eyes, that are always 
looking about them. Eyes that can be very soft at one 
time, and very bright at another. Eyes tender and clear, 
just at the present moment, but capable, on very slight 
provocation, of opening rather too widely, and looking 
rather too brilliantly resolute.” 

“Mind you don’t make them look so now! What is 
there below the eyes?’ 

“ A nose that is not quite big enough to be in proper pro- 
portion with them. A nose that has a slight tendency to 
be ” 

“Don’t say the horrid English word! Spare my feel- 
ings by putting it in French. Say retrousse^ and skip over 
my nose as fast as possible.” 

“ I must stop at the mouth, then, and own that it is as 
near perfection as possible. The lips are lovely in shape, 
fresh in color, and irresistible in expression. They smile 
in my portrait, and I am sure they are smiling at me 
now.” 

“ How could they do otherwise when they are getting so 
much praise? My vanity whispers to me that I had better 
stop the catechism here. If I talk about my complexion, 
I shall only hear that it is of the dusky sort ; and that there 
is never red enough in it except when I am walking, or 
confused, or angry. If I ask a question about my figure, 
I shall receive tire dreadful answer, ‘ You are dangerously 
inclined to be fat.’ If I say, How do I dress? I shall be 
told. Not soberly enough ; you are as fond as a child of gay 

colors No! I will venture no more questions. But, 

vanity apart, Lenny, I am so glad, so proud, so happy to 
find that you can keep the image of me clearly in your 
mind. I shall do my best now to look and dress like your 
last remembrance of me. My love of loves ! I will do you 
credit — I Avill try if I can’t make you envied for your wife. 
You deserve a hundred thousand kisses for saying your 
catechism so well—and there they are!” 

While Mrs. Frankland was conferring the reward of 
merit on her husband, the sound of a faint, amall, courte- 


56 '- 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


ously sigiiificaiit cough made itself timidly audible in a cor- 
ner of the room. Turning round instantl}^, with the quick- 
ness that characterized all her actions, Mrs. Frankland, to 
her horror and indignation, confronted Miss Mowlem 
standing just inside the door, with a letter in her hand and 
a blush of sentimental agitation on her simpering face. 

“ You wretch! how dare you come in without knocking 
at the door?” cried Rosamond, starting to her feet with a 
stamp, and passing in an instant from the height of fond 
ness to the height of indignation. 

Miss Mowlem shook guiltily before the bright, angry eyes 
that looked through and through her, turned very pale, 
held out the letter apologetically, and said in her meekest 
tones that she was very sorry. 

“Sorry!” exclaimed Rosamond, getting even more irri- 
tated by the apology than she had been by the intrusion, 
and showing it by another stamp of the foot; “ who cares 
whether you are sorry? I don’t want your sorrow— I 
won’t have it. I never was so insulted in my life — never, 
you mean, prying, inquisitive creature!” 

“Rosamond! Rosamond! pray don’t forget yourself!” 
interposed the quiet voice of Mr. Frankland. 

“Lenny, dear, I can’t help it! That creature would 
drive a saint mad. She has been prying after us ever 
since we have been here You have, you ill-bred, in- 

delicate woman ! I suspected it before ; I am certain of it 
now ! Must we lock the doors to keep you out? we won’t 
lock our doors !. Fetch the bill! We give you warning. 
Mr. Frankland gives you warning— don’t you, Lenny? 
ITl pack up all your things, dear: she sha’n’t touch one of 
them. Go down- stairs and make out your bill, and give 
your mother warning. Mr. Frankland says he won’t 
have his rooms burst into, and his doors listened at by in- 
quisitive women — and I say so too. Put that letter down 
on the table— unless you want to open it and read it — put 
it down, you audacious woman, and fetch the bill, and tell 
your mother we are going to leave the house directly!” 

At this dreadful threat. Miss Mowlem, who was soft and 
timid, as well as curious, by nature, wrung her hands in 
despair, and overflowed meekly in a shower of tears* 

“Oh, good gracious heavens above!” cried Miss Mow- 
lem, addressing herself distractedly to the ceiling, “what 
will mother say? whatever will become of me now? Oh, 
ma’am, I thought I knocked— I did, indeed! Oh, ma’am, 
I humbly beg pardon, and I’ll never intrude again. Oh, 
ma’am, motlier’s a widow, and this is the first time we 
have let the lodgings, and the furniture's swallowed up all 
our money, and, oh, ma’am! ma’am! how I shall catch it 


THE DEAD SECRET 


57 


if you go!” Here words failed Miss Mowlem, and hyster- 
ical sobs pathetically supplied their place. 

“Kosamondl” said Mr. Franklaiid. There was an ac- 
cent of sorrow in his voice this time, as well as an accent 
of remonstrance. Rosamond’s quick ear caught’ the alter- 
ation in his tone. As she looked round at him her color 
changed, her head drooped a little, and her whole expres- 
sion altered on the instant. She stole gently to her hus- 
band’s side with soft, saddened eyes, and put her lips 
caressingly close to his ear. 

” Lenny,” she whispered, “ have I made you angry with 
me?” • 

” I can’t be angry with you, Rosamond, ” was the quiet 
answer. “I only wish, love, that you could have con- 
trolled yourself a little sooner.” 

“I am so sorry — so very, very sorry!” The fresh, soft 
lips came closer still to his ear as they whispered these pen - 
itent words; and the cunning little hand crept up trem 
blingly round his neck and began to play with his hair. 
”So sorry, and so ashamed of myself! But it was enough 
to make almost anybody angry, just at first— wasn’t it, 
dear? And you will forgive me — won’t you, Lenny? — if I 
promise never to behave so badly again? Never mind that 
wretched, whimpering fool at the door,” said Rosamond, 
undergoing a slight relapse as she looked round at Miss 
Mowlem, standing immovably repentant against the wall, 
with her face buried in a dingy white pocket handkerchief. 
” I’ll make it up with her; ITl stop her crying; I’ll take 
her out of the room ; I’ll do anything in the world that’s 
kind to her, if you will only forgive me.” 

“ A polite word or two is all that is wanted— nothing 
more than a polite word or two,” said Mr. Frankland, 
rather coldly and constrainedly. 

“Don’t cry any more, for goodness’ sake!” said Rosa- 
mond, walking straight up to Miss Mowlem, and pulling 
the dingy -white pocket-handkerchief away from her face 
without the least ceremony. “There! leave off, will you? 
I am very sorry I was in a passion— though you had no 
business to come in without knocking— I never meant to 
distress you, and I’ll never say a hard word to you again, 
if you will only knock at the door for the future, and leave 
off crying now. Do leave off crying, you tiresome creat- 
ure! We are not going away. We don’t want your 
mother, or the bill, or anything. Here ! here’s a present 
for you, if you’ll leave off crying. Here’s my neck -ribbon 
—I saw you trying it on yesterday afternoon, when I was 
lying down on the bedroom sofa, and you thought I was 
asleep. Never mind; I’m not angry about that. Take the 
ribbon— take it as a peace- offering, if you won’t as a pres- 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


5a 

fent. You s/iaZZ take it ! No, I don’t mean that — I mean, 
please take it! There, I’ve pinned it on. And now, 
shake hands and be friends, and go up stairs and see how 
it looks in the glass.” With these words Mrs. Frankland 
opened the door, administered, under the pretense of a pat 
on the shoulder, a good-humored shove to the amazed and 
embarrassed Miss Mowlem, closed the door again, and re- 
sumed her place in a moment on her husband’s knee. 

“ I’ve made it up with her, dear. I’ve sent her away 
with my bright green ribbon, and it makes her look as yel- 
low as a guinea, and as ugly as ’ ’ Eosarnond stopped, 

and looked anxiously into Mr. Fra»kland’s face. ‘ ‘ Lenny !” 
she said, sadly, putting her cheek against his, “are you 
angry with me still?” 

“My love, I was never angry with you. I never dan 
be.” 

“ I will always keep my temper down for the future, 
Lenny I” 

“I am sure you will, Eosarnond. But never mind that. 
I am not thinking of your temper now.” 

“Of what then?” 

“Of the apology you made to Miss Mowlem.” 

“ Did I not say enough? I’ll call her back if you like— 
ITl make another penitent speech — ITl do anything but kiss 
her. I really can't do tliat— I can’t kiss anybody now but 
you.” 

“ My dear, dear love, how very much like a child you 
are still in some of your ways! You said more than 
enough to Miss Mowlem— far more. And if you will par- 
don me for making the remark, I think in your generosity 
and good-nature you a little forgot yourself wuth the 
young woman. I don’t so much allude to your giving her 
the ribbon — though, perhaps, that might have been done a 
little less familiarly — but, from what I heard you say, I 
infer that you actually went the length of shaking hands 
with her.” 

“ Was that wrong? I thought it was the kindest way of 
making it up.” 

“ My dear, it is an excellent ivay of making it up between 
equals. But consider the difference between your station 
in society and Miss Mo wlem's.” 

“ I will, try and consider it, if you wish me, love. But I 
think I take after my father, who never troubles his head 
(dear old man!) about differences of station. I can’t help 
liking people who are kind to me, without thinking whether 
they are above my rank or below it; and when I got cool, I 
must confess I felt just as vexed with myself for frighten- 
ing and distressing that unlucky Miss Mowlem as if her 
station had beeii equal to mine. I will try to think as you 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


59 


do, Lenny; bnt I am very much afraid that I have got, 
without knowing exactly how, to be what the newspapers 
call a Radical.” 

“My dear Rosamond ! don’t talk of yourself in that waCy, 
even in joke. You ought to be the last person in the world 
to confuse those distinctions in rank on which the whole 
well being of society depends.” 

“Does it really? And yet, dear, we don’t seem to have 
been created with such very wide distinctions between us. 
We have all got the same number of arms and legs: we are 
all hungry and thirsty, and hot in the summer and cold in 
the winter ; we all laugh when v e are pleased, and cry 
when we are distressed ; and, surely, we have all got very 
much the same feelings, whether we are high or whether 
we are low. I could not have loved you better, Lenny, 
than I do now if I had been a duchess, or less than I do 
now if I had been a servant-girl. ” 

“My love, you are not a servant-girl; and as to what 
you say about being a duchess, let me remind you that you 
are not so much below a duchess as you seem to think. 
Many a lady of high title cannot look back on such a line 
of ancestors as yours. Your father’s family, Rosamond, is 
one of the oldest in England. Even my father’s family 
hardly dates back so far; and we were landed gentry when 
many a name in the peerage was not heard of. It is really 
almost laughably absurd to hear you talking of yourself as 
a Radical. ’ ’ 

“ I won’t talk of myself so again, Lenny— only don’t look 
so serious. I will be a Tory, dear, if you will give me a 
kiss, and let me sit on your knee a little longer. ’ ’ 

Mr. Frankland’s gravity was not proof against his wife’s 
change of political principles, and the conditions which she 
annexed to it. His face cleared up, and he laughed almost 
as gayly as Rosamond herself. 

“By the bye,” ‘he said, after an interval of silence had 
given him time to collect his thoughts, “did I not hear you 
tell Miss Mowlem to put a letter down on the table ? Is it a 
letter for you or for me?” 

“Ah ! I forgot all about the letter,” said Rosamond, run- 
ning to the table. “It is for you, Lenny— and, goodness 
me! here’s the Porthgenna postmarkon it.’' 

“ It must be from the builder whom I sent down to the 
old house about the repairs. Lend me your eyes, love, and 
let us hear what he says.” 

Rosamond opened the letter, drew a stool to her hus- 
band’s feet, and, sitting down with her arms on his knees, 
read as follows : 

“To Leonard Frankland, Esq., Sir,— Agreeably to the 
instructions with which you favored me, I have proceeded 


60 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


to surve^^ Porthgenna Tower, with a view to ascertaining 
what repairs the house in general, and the north side of it 
in particular, may stand in need of. 

‘‘ As regards the outside, a little cleaning and new point 
ing is all that the building wants. The walls and founda ‘ 
tions seem made to last forever. Such strong, solid work 
I never set e> es on before. 

“Inside the house, I cannot report so favorably. The 
rooms in the west front, having been inhabited during the 
period of Captain Treverton’s occupation, and having been 
well looked after since, are in tolerably sound condition. I 
should say two hundred pounds would cover the expense 
of all repairs in my line which these rooms need. This sum 
would not include the restoration of the western staircase, 
which has given a little in some places, and the balusters 
of which are decidedly insecure from the first to the second 
landing. From twenty-five to thirty pounds would suffice 
to set this all right. 

“ In the rooms on the north front, the state of dilapida- 
tion, from top to bottom, is as bad as can be. From all 
that I could ascertain, nobody ever went near these rooms 
in Captain Treverton’s time, or has ever entered them 
since. The people who now keep the house have a super- 
stitious dread of opening any of the north doors, in conse- 
quence of the time that has elapsed since any living being 
has passed through them. Nobody would volunteer to ac- 
company me in my survey, and nobody could tell me which 
keys fitted which room doors in any part of the north side. 

I could find no plan containing the names or numbers of 
the rooms, nor, to my surprise, were there any labels at- 
tached separately to the keys. They were given to me, all 
hanging together on a large ring, with an ivory label on it. 
which was only marked— Keys of the North Rooms. I 
take the liberty of mentioning these particulars in order to 
account for my having, as you might think, delayed my 
stay at Porthgenna Tower longer than is needful. I lost 
nearly a whole day in taking the keys off the ring, and fit- 
ting them at hazard to the right doors. And I occupied 
some hours of another day in marking each door with a 
number on the outside, and putting a corresponding label 
to each, key, before I replaced it on the ring, in order to 
prevent the possibility of future errors and delays. 

“ As I hope to furnish you, in a few days, with a detailed 
estimate of the repairs needed in the north part of the 
house, from basement to roof, I need only say here that 
they will occupy some time, and will be of the most exten- 
sive nature. The beams of the staircase and the flooring 
of the first story have got the dry rot. The damp in some 
rooms, and the rats in others, have almost destroyed the 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


61 


Avainscotings. Four of the mantel-pieces have given out 
from the walls, and all the ceilings are either stained, 
cracked, or peeled away in large patches. The flooring is, 
in general, in a better condition than I had anticipated ; 
but the shutters and window-sashes are so Avarped as to be 
useless. It is only fair to acknowledge that the expense of 
setting all these things to rights — that is to say, of making 
the rooms safe and habitable, and of putting them in 
proper condition for the upholsterer — will be considerable. 
I would respectfully suggest, in the event of your feeling 
any surprise or dissatisfaction at^ the amount of my esti- 
mate, that you should name a friend in Avhom you place 
confidence, to go over the north rooms Avith me, keeping 
my estimate in his hand. I will undertake to prove, if 
needful, the necessity of each separate repair, and the jus- 
tice of each separate charge for the same, to the .satisfac- 
tion of any competent and impartial person AAdiom you 
may please to select. 

“ Trusting to send you the estimate in a few days, 

“ I remain, sir, 

‘ ‘ Your humble servant, 

“Thomas Horlock.” 

“ A very honest, straightforward letter,” said Mr. 
Frankland. 

“I wish he had sent the estimate with it,” said Eosa- 
mond. “Why could not the provoking man tell us at 
once, in round numbers, what the repairs will really cost?” 

“ I suspect, my dear, he was afraid of shocking us, if he 
mentioned the amount in round numbers.” 

“ That horrid money. It is always getting in one’s way, 
and upsetting one’s plans. If Ave haven’t got enough, let 
us go and borroAv of somebody who has. Do you mean to 
dispatch a friend to Porthgenna to go over the house AAuth 
Mr. Horlock? If you do, I know who I wish you Avould 
send.” 

“Who?” 

“ Me, if you please — under your escort, of course. Don’t 
laugh, Lenny; I Avould be very sharp with Mr. Horlock; I 
Avould object to every one of his charges, and beat him' 
doAvn without mercy. I once saw a surveyor go over a 
house, and I know exactly what to do. You stamp on the 
floor, and knock at the walls, and scrape at the brick-work, 
and look up all the chimneys, and out of all the windows 
—sometimes you make notes in a little book, sometimes 
you measure with a foot-rule, sometimes you sit down all 
of a sudden and think profoundly — and the end of it is 
that you say the house will do very Avell indeed, if the 
tenant will pull out his purse, and put it in proper repair. ” 

“Well done, Rosamond! You have one more accom- 


02 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


plisbment than I knew of ; and I suppose I have no choice 
now but to give you an opportunity of displaying it. If 
you don’t object, my dear, to being associated with a pro- 
fessional assistant in the important business of checking 
Mr. Horlock's estimate, I don’t object to paying a short 
visit to Porthgenna whenever you please — especially now 
I know that the west rooms are still habitable.” 

”Oh, how kind of you! how pleased I shall be! how I 
shall enjoy seeing the old place again before it is altered ! I 
was only five years old, Lenny, when we left Porthgenna, 
and I am so anxious to see what I can remember of it, after 
such a long, long absence as mine. Do you know, I never 
saw anything of that ruinous north side of the house?— and 
I do so dote on old rooms! We will go all through them, 
Lenny. You shall have hold of my hand, and look with 
my eyes, and make as many discoveries as I do. I proph- 
esy that we shall see ghosts, and find treasures, and hear 
mysterious noises — and, oh, heavens! what clouds of dust 
we shall have to go through. Pouf ! the very anticipation 
of them chokes me already!” 

“Now we are on the subject of Porthgenna, Rosamond, 
let us be serious for one moment. It is clear to me that 
these repairs of the north rooms will cost a large sum of 
money. Now, my love, I consider no sum of money mis- 
spent, however large it may be, if it procures you pleasure. 
I am with you heart and soul ” 

He paused. His wife’s caressing arms were twining 
round his neck again, and her cheek was laid gently 
against his. “Go on, Lenny,” she said, with such an ac- 
cent of tenderness in the utterance of those three simple 
words that his speech failed him for the moment, and all 
his sensations seemed absorbed in the one luxury of listen- 
ing. “Rosamond,” he whispered, “there is no music in 
the world that touches me as your voice touches me now. 
I feel it all through me, as I used sometimes to feel the sky 
at night, in the time when I could see.” As he spoke, the 
caressing arms tightened round his neck, and the fervent 
lips softly took the place which the cheek had occupied. 
“Go on, Lenny,” they repeated, happily as well as ten^ 
derly now, “you said you were with me heart and soul. 
With me in what?” 

“ In your project, love, for inducing your father to retire 
from his profession after this last cruise, and in j our hope 
of prevailing on him to pass the evening of his days happily 
with us at Porthgenna. If the money spent in restoring 
the north rooms, so that we may all live in them for the 
future, does indeed so alter the look of the place to his eyes 
as to dissipate his old sorro^vful associations with it, and to 
make his living there again a pleasure instead of a pain to 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


63 


him, I shall regard it as money well laid out. But, Rosa- 
mond, are you sure of the success of your plan before we 
undertake it? Have you dropped any hint of the Forth- 
genna project to your father?” 

“I told him Lenny, that I should never be quite com- 
fortable unless he left the sea and came to live with us-^ 
and he said that he would. I did not mention a word about 
Porthgenna — nor did he— but he knows that we shall live 
there when we are settled, and he made no conditions when 
he promised that our home should be his home.” 

‘ ‘ Is the loss of your mother the only sad association he 
has with the place?” 

“Not quite. There is another association, which has 
never been mentioned, but which I may tell you, because 
there are no secrets between us. My mother had a favorite 
maid who lived with her from the time of her marriage, 
and who was, accidentally, the only person present in her 
room when she died. I remember hearing of this woman 
as being odd in her look and manner, and no great favorite 
with anybody but her mistress. Well, on the morning of 
my mother’s death, she disappeared from the house in the 
strangest way, leaving behind her a most singular and 
mysterious letter to my father, asserting that in my moth- 
er’s dying moments a secret had been confided to her 
which she was charged to divulge to her master when her 
mistress was no more ; and adding that she was afraid to 
mention this secret, and that, to avoid being questioned 
about it, she had resolved on leaving the house forever. 
Siie had been gone some hours when the letter was opened 
— and she has never been seen or heard of since that time. 
This circumstance seemed to make almost as strong an im- 
pression on my father’s mind as the shock of my mother’s 
death. Our neighbors and servants all thought (as I think) 
that the woman was mad ; but ho never agreed with them, 
and I know that he has neither destroyed nor forgotten 
the letter from that time to this.” 

“ A strange event, Rosamond — a very strange event. I 
don’t wonder that it has made a lasting impression on him. ’ ’ 

“ Depend upon it, Lenny, the servants and the neighbors 
were right— the woman was mad. Anyway, however, it 
was certainly a singular event in our family. All old houses 
have their romance — and that is the romance of our house. 
But years and years have passed since then ; and, what with 
time, and what with the changes we are going to make, I 
have no fear that my dear, good father will spoil our plans. 
Give him a new north garden at Porthgenna, where he can 
walk the decks, as I call it — give him new north rooms to 
live in — and I will answer for the result. But all this is in 
^he future ; let us get back to the present time. When sh^U 


64 


THE DEAD SECRET 


we pay our flying visit to Porthgenna, Lenny, and plunge 
into the important business of checking Mr. Horlock’s es- 
timate for the repairs?” 

“We have three weeks more to stay here, Rosamond.” 

“Yes; and then we must go back to Long Beckley. I 
promised that best and biggest of men, the vicar, that we 
would pay our first visit to him. He is sure not to let us 
off under three weeks or a month.” 

“In that case, then, we had better say two months 
hence for the visit to Porthgenna. Is your writing-case in 
the room, Rosamond?” 

“Yes; close by us, on the table.” 

“Write to Mr. Horlock then, love — and appoint a meet- 
ing in two months’ time at the old house. Tell him also, 
as we must not trust ourselves on unsafe stairs— especially 
considering how dependent I am on balusters — to have the 
west staircase repaired immediately. And while you have 
the pen in your hand, perhaps it may save trouble if you 
write a second note to the housekeeper at Porthgenna, to 
tell her when she may expect us.” 

Rosamond sat down gayly at the table, and dipped her 
pen in the ink with a little flourish of triumph. 

“ In two months, ” she exclaimed joyfully, “I shall see 
the dear old place again ! In two months, Lenny, our pro- 
fane feet will be raising the dust in the solitudes of the 
North Rooms.” 


o 


BOOK III. 


CHAPTER I. 

TIMON OF LONDON. 

Timon of Athens retreated from an ungrateful world 
to a cavern by the sea-shore, vented his misanthropy 
in magnificent poetry, and enjoyed the honor of being 
called “My Lord.” Timon of London took refuge from 
his species in a detached house at Bay swater— expressed 
his sentiments in shabby prose — and was only addressed 
as “ Mr. Treverton.” The one point of resemblance which 
it is impossible to set against these points of contrast 
between the two Timons consisted in this: that their 
misanthropy was, at least, genuine. Both were incorrigible 
haters of mankind. 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


65 


There is probably no better proof of the accuracy of that 
definition of man which describes him as an imitative ani- 
mal, than is to be found in the fact that the verdict of hu- 
manity is always against any individual member of the 
species who presumes to differ from the rest. A man is 
one of a fiock, and his wool must be of the general color. 
He must drink when the rest drink, and graze where the 
rest graze. Let him walk at noonday with perfect com- 
posure of countenance and decency of gait, with not the 
slightest appearance of vacancy in his eyes or wildness in 
his manner, from one end of Oxford Street to the other 
without his hat, and let every one of the thousands of hat- 
wearing people whom he passes be asked separately what 
they think of him. how many will abstain from deciding 
instantly that he is mad, on no other evidence than the 
evidence of his bare head? Nay, more; let him politely 
stop each one of those passengers, and let him explain in 
the plainest form of words, and in the most intelligible 
maimer, that his head feels more easy and comfortable 
without a hat than with one, how many of his fellow-mor- 
tals who decided that he was mad on first meeting him, 
will change their opinion when they part from him after 
hearing his explanation? In the vast majority of cases, 
the very explanation itself would be accepted as an excel- 
lent additional proof that the intellect of the hatless man 
was indisputably deranged. 

Starting at the beginning of the march of life out of step 
with the rest of the mortal regiment, Andrew Treverton 
paid the penalty of his irregularity from his earliest days. 
He was a phenomenon in the nursery, a butt at school, and 
a victim at college. The ignorant nurse-maid reported 
him as a queer child ; the^ learned schoolmaster genteelly 
varied the phrase, and described him as an eccentric boy; 
the college tutor, harping on the same string, facetiously 
likened his head to a roof, and said there was a slate loose 
in it. When a slate is loose, if nobody fixes it in time, it 
ends by falling off. In the roof of a house we view that 
consequence as a necessary result of neglect; in the roof of 
a man’s head we are generally very much shocked and 
surprised by it. 

Overlooked in some directions and misdirected in others, 
Andrew’s uncouth capacities for good tried helplessly to 
shape themselves. The better side of his eccentricity took 
the form of friendship. He became violently and unin- 
telligibly fond of one among his schoolfellows— a boy who 
treated him with no especial consideration in the play- 
ground, and who gave him no particular help in the class. 
Nobody could discover the smallest reason for it, but it was 
nevertheless a notorious fact that Andrew’s pocket-money 


66 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


was always at this boy’s service, that Andrew ran about 
after him like a dog, and that Andrew over and over again 
took the blame and punishment on his own shoulders which 
ought to have fallen on the shoulders of his friend. When, 
a few years afterward, that friend went to college, the lad 
petitioned to be sent to college too, and attached himself 
there more closely than ever to the strangely chosen com- 
rade of his schoolboy days. Such devotion as this must 
have touched any man possessed of ordinary generosity of 
disposition. It made no impression whatever on the in- 
herently base nature of Andrew’s friend . After three years 
of intercourse at college — intercourse which was all selfish- 
ness on one side and all self-sacrifice on the other— the end 
came, and the light was let in cruelly on Andrew’s eyes. 
When his purse grew light in his friend’s hand, and when 
his acceptances were most numerous on his friend’s bills, 
the brother of his honest affection, the hero of his simple 
admiration, abandoned him to embarrassment, to ridicule, 
and to solitude, without the faintest affectation of penitence 
— without so much even as a word of farewell. 

He returned to his father’s house, a soured man at the 
outset of life— returned to be upbraided for the debts that 
he had contracted to serve the man who had heartlessly 
outraged and shamelessly^ cheated him. He left home in 
disgrace to travel on a small allowance. The travels were 
protracted and they ended, as such travels often do, in 
settled expatriation. The life he led, the company he kept, 
during his long residence abroad, did him permanent and 
fatal harm. When he at last returned to England, he pre- 
sented himself the most hopeless of all characters— the 
character of a man who believes in nothing. At this period 
of his life, his one chance for the future lay in the good re- 
sults which. his brother’s influence over him might have 
produced. The two had hardly resumed their intercourse 
of early days, when the quarrel occasioned by Captain 
Treverton’s marriage broke it off forever. From that 
time, for all social interests and purposes, Andrew was a 
lost man. From that time he met the last remonstrances 
that were made to him by the last friends who took any^ 
interest in his fortunes alway’^s with the same bitter and 
hopeless form of reply: “My dearest friend forsook and 
cheated me,” he would say. “My only brother has quar- 
reled with me for the sake of a play-actress. What am I 
to expect of the rest of mankind after that? I have 
suffered twice for my belief in others — I will never suffer 
a third time. The wise man is the man who does not dis- 
turb his heart at its natural occupation of pumping blood 
through his body. I have gathered my experience abroad 
and at home, and have learned enough to see through the 


Tim DEAD mCRET 


67 


delusions of life which look like realities to other men’s 
ej^es. My business in this world is to eat, drink, sleep, and 
die. Everything else is superfluity— and I have done with 
it.” 

The few people who ever cared to inquire about him 
again, after being repulsed by such an avowal as this, 
heard of him three or four years after his brother’s mar- 
riage in the neighborhood of Bayswater. Local reports de- 
scribed him as having bought the first cottage he could And 
which was cut off from other houses by a wall all round it. 
It was further rumored that he was living like a miser ; 
that he had got an old man-servant, named Shrowl, who 
was even a greater enemy to mankind than himself; that 
he allowed no living soul, not even an occasional char- 
woman, to enter the house; that he was letting his beard 
grow, and that he had ordered his servant Shrowl to follow 
his example. In the year eighteen hundred and forty-four, 
the fact of a man’s not shaving was regarded by the en- 
lightened majority of the English nation as a proof of un- 
soundness of intellect. At the present time Mr. Trever- 
ton’s beard would only have interfered with his reputation 
for respectability. Seventeen years ago it was accepted as 
so much additional evidence in support of the old theory 
that his intellects were deranged. 

He was at that very time, as his stock-broker could 
have testified, one of the sharpest men of business, in Lon- 
don ; he could argue on the wrong side of any question with 
an acuteness of sophistry and sarcasm that Dr. Johnson 
himself might have envied ; he kept his household accounts 
right to a farthing— but what did these advantages avail 
him, in the estimation of his neighbors, when he pre- 
sumed to live on another plan than theirs, and when he 
wore a hairy certificate of lunacy on the L:)wer part of his 
face? We have advanced a little in the matter of partial 
toleration of beards since that time ; but we have still a 
good deal of ground to get over. In the present year "of 
progress, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, would the most 
trustworthy banker’s clerk in the whole metropolis have 
the slightest chance of keeping his situation if he left off 
shaving his chin? 

Common report, which calumniated Mr. Treverton as 
mad, had another error to answer for in describing him as 
a miser. He saved more than two thirds of the income 
derived from his comfortable fortune, not because he liked 
hoarding up money, but because he had no enjoyment of 
the comforts and luxuries which money is spent in procur- 
ing. To do him justice, his contempt for his own wealth 
was quite as hearty as his contempt for the wealth of his 
neighbors. Thus characteristically wrong in endeavoring 


68 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


to delineate his character, report was, nevertheless, for 
once in a way, inconsistently right in describing his man- 
ner of life. It was true that he had bought the first cot- 
tage he could find that was secluded within its own walls 
—true that nobody was allowed on any pretense whatever, 
to enter his doors — and true that he had met with a serv- 
ant, who was even bitterer against all mankind than him- 
self, in the person of Mr. Shrowl. 

The life these two led approached as nearly to the exist- 
ence of the primitive man (or savage) as the surrounding 
conditions of civilization would allow. Admitting the 
necessity of eating and drinking, the first object of Mr. 
Treverton’s ambition was to sustain life with the least pos- 
sible dependence on the race of men who professed to sup- 
ply their neighbors’ bodily wants, and who, as he conceived, 
cheated them infamously on the strength of their profes- 
sion. 

Having a garden at the back of the house, Timon of 
London dispensed with the green-grocer altogether by cul- 
tivating his own vegetables. There was no room for grow- 
ing wheat, or he would have turned farmer also on his own 
account ; but he could outwit the miller and the baker, at 
any rate, by buying a sack of corn, grinding it in his own 
hand-mill, and giving the flour to Shrowl to make into 
bread. On the same principle, the meat for the house was 
bought wholesale of the City salesmen — the master and 
servant eating as much of it in the fresh state as they 
could, salting the rest, and setting butchers at defiance. 
As for drink, neither brewer nor publican ever had the 
chance of extorting a farthing from Mr. Treverton’s pocket. 
He and Shrowl were satisfied with beer — and they brewed 
for themselves. With bread, vegetables, meat, and malt 
liquor, these two hermits of modern days achieved the 
great double purpose of keeping life in and keeping the 
tradesmen out. 

Eating like primitive men, they lived in all other re- 
spects like primitive men also. They had pots, pans, and 
pipkins, two deal tables, two chairs, two old sofas, two 
short pipes, and two long cloaks. They had no stated 
meal-times, no carpets and bedsteads, no cabinets, book- 
cases, or ornamental knickknacks of any kind, no laundress, 
and no char- woman. When either of' the two wanted to 
eat and drink, he cut off his crust of bread, cooked his bit 
of meat, drew his drop of beer, without the slightest refer- 
ence to the other. When either of the two thought he 
wanted a clean shirt, which was very seldom, he went and 
washed one for himself. When either of the two discovered 
that any part of the house was getting very dirty indeed, 
he took a bucket of water and a birch-broom, and washed 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


69 


the place out like a dog-kennel. And, lastly, when either 
of the two wanted to go to sleep, he wrapped himself up in 
his cloak, lay down on one of the sofas, and took what re- 
pose he required, early in the evening or late in the morn- 
ing, just as he pleased. 

When there was no baking, brewing, gardening, or 
cleaning to be done, the two sat down opposite each other, 
and smoked for hours, generally Avithout uttering a word. 
Whenever they did speak, they quarreled. Their ordi- 
nary dialogue was a species of conversational prize-fight, 
beginning with a sarcastic affectation of good-will on either 
side, and ending in hearty exchanges of violent abuse — 
just as the boxers go through the feeble formality of shak- 
ing hands before they enter on the serious practical busi- 
ness of beating each other’s faces out of all likeness to the 
image of man. Not having so many disadvantages of 
early refinement and education to contend against as his 
master, Shrowl generally won the victory in these en- 
gagements of the tongue. Indeed, though nominally 
the servant, he was really the ruling spirit in the house — 
acquiring unbounded influence over his master by dint of 
outmarching Mr. Treverton in every direction of his own 
ground. Shrowl’s was the harshest voice; Shrowl’ s were 
the bitterest sayings; and Shrowl’s Avas the longest beard. 
The surest of all retributions is the retribution that lies in 
wait for a man who boasts. Mr. Treverton was rashly 
given to boasting of his independence, and Avhen retribution 
overtook him it assumed a personal form, and bore the 
name of ShroAvl. 

On a certain morning, about three weeks after Mrs. 
Frankland had written to the housekeeper at Porthgenna 
Tower to mention the period at Avhich her husband and 
herself might be expected there, Mr. Treverton descended, 
Avith his sourest face and his surliest manner, from the 
upper regions of the cottage to one of the rooms on the 
ground-floor, Avhich civilized tenants would probably have 
called the parlor. Like his elder brother, he was a tall, 
well-built man; but his bony, haggard, sallow face bore 
not the slightest resemblance to the handsome, open, sun- 
burned face of the captain. No one seeing them together 
could possibly have guessed that they were brothers— so 
completely did they differ in expression as well as in feat- 
ure. The heartaches that he had suffered in youth; the 
reckless, wandering, dissipated life that he had led in man- 
hood ; the petulance, the disappointment, and the physical 
exhaustion of his latter days, had so wasted and Avorn him 
away that he looked his brother’s elder by almost twenty 
years. With unbrushed hair and unwashed face^ with a 


70 


THE DEAD SECRET 


^ngled gray beard, and an old, patched, dirty flannel dress- 
ing-gown that hung al)Out him like a sack, this descendant 
of a wealthy and ancient family looked as if his birthplace 
had been the workhouse, and his vocation in life the sell- 
ing of cast-off clothes. 

It was breakfast -time with Mr. Treverton — that is to say, 
it was the time at which he felt hungry enough to think 
about eating something. In the same position over the 
mantel piece in which a loooking -glass would have been 
placed in a household of ordinary refinement, there hung 
in the cottage of Timon of London a side of bacon. On 
the deal table by the fire stood half a loaf of heavy -looking 
brown bread; in a corner of the room was a barrel of beer, 
with two battered pewter pots hitched on to nails in the 
wall above it; and under the grate lay a smoky old grid- 
iron, left just as it had been thrown down when last used 
and done with. Mr. Treverton took a greasy clasp-knife 
out of the pocket of his dressing-gown, cut off a rasher 
of bacon, jerked the gridiron on to the fire, and began to 
cook his breakfast. He had just turned the rasher, when 
the door opened, and Shrowl entered the room, with his 
pipe in his mouth, bent on the same eating errand as his 
master. 

In personal appearance, Shrowl was short, fat, flabby, 
and perfectly bald, except at the back of his head, where a 
ring of bristly iron-gray hair projected like a collar that 
had got hitched out of its place. To make amends for the 
scantiness of his hair, the beard which he had cultivated 
by his master’s desire grew far over his cheeks, and 
drooped down on his chest in two thick, jagged peaks. He 
wore a very old long tailed dress-coat, which he had picked 
up a bargain in Petticoat Lane — a faded yellow shirt, with 
a large torn frill — velveteen trousers, turned up at the 
ankles— and Blucher boots that had never been blacked 
since the day when they last left the cobbler’s stall. His 
color was unhealthily florid, his thick lips curled upward 
with a malicious grin, and his eyes were the nearest ap- 
proach, in form and expression, to the eyes of a bull-terrier 
Avhich those features are capable of achieving when they 
are placed in the countenance of a man. Any painter 
wanting to express strength, insolence, ugliness, coarseness, 
and cunning in the face and figure of one and the same in- 
dividual, could have discovered no better model for the 
purpose, all the world over, than he might have found in 
the person of Mr. Shrowl. 

Neither master nor servant exchanged a word or took the 
smallest notice of each other on first meeting. Shrowl 
stood stolidly contemplative, with his hands in his pockets, 
Waiting for his turn at the gridiron. Mr. Treverton fin- 


THE DEAD SECRET 


71 


ished Ids cooking, took his bacon to the table, and, cutting 
a crust of bread, began to eat his breakfast. When he had 
disposed of the first mouthful, he condescended to look up 
at Shrowl, who was at that moment opening his clasp-knife 
and approaching the side of bacon with slouching steps and 
sleepily greedy eyes. 

“What do you mean by that?” asked Mr. Treverton, 
pointing with indignant surprise at Shrowl’s breast. “ You 
ugly brute, you’ve got a clean shirt on !” 

“Thankee, sir, for noticing it,” said Shrowl, with a 
sarcastic affectation of humility. “This is a joyful occa- 
sion, this is. I couldn’t do no less than put a clean shirt 
on, when ii’s my master’s birthday. Many happy returns, 
sir. Perhaps you thought I should forget that to-day was 
your birthday? Lord bless* your sweet face, I wouldn’t 
have forgot it on any account. How old are you to-day? 
It’s a long time ago, sir, since you was a plump smiling lit- 
tle boy, with a frill round your neck, and marbles in your 
pocket, and trousers and waistcoat all in one, and kisses 
and presents from ma and pa and uncle and aunt, on your 
birthday. Don’t you be afraid of me wearing out this shirt 
by too much washing. I mean to put it away in lavender 
against your next birthday ; or against your funeral, which 
is just as likely at your time of life, isn't it, sir?” 

“Don’t waste a clean shirt on my funeral,” retorted Mr. 
Treverton. “ I haven’t left you any money in my will, 
Shrowl. You’ll be on your way to the work-house when 
I’m on my way to the grave.” 

“ Have you really made your will at last, sir?” inquired 
Shrowl, pausing, with an appearance of the greatest inter- 
est, in the act of cutting off his slice of bacon. “I hum- 
bly beg pardon, but I always thought you was afraid to 
doit.” 

The servant had evidently touched intentionally on one 
of the master’s sore points. Mr. Treverton thumped his 
crust of bread on the table, and looked up angrily at. 
Shrowl. 

“Afraid of making my will, you fool!” he said. “I 
don’t make it, and I won’t make it, on principle.” 

Shrowl slowly sawed off his slice of bacon, and began to 
whistle a tune. 

“On principle,” repeated Mr. Treverton. “Rich men 
who leave money behind them are the farmers who raise 
the crop of human wickedness. When a man has any 
spark of generosity in his nature, if you want to put it out, 
leave him a legacy. When a man is bad, if you want to 
make him worse, leave him a legacy. If you want to 
collect a number of men together for the purpose of 
perpetuating corruption and oppression on a large scale, 


72 


THE DEAD SECRET 


leave them a legacy under the form of endowing a public 
charity. If you want to give a woman the best chance in 
the world of getting a bad husband, leave her a legacy. 
Make my will! I have a pretty strong dislike of my 
species, Shrowl, but I don’t quite hate mankind enough 
yet to do such mischief among them as that !” Ending his 
diatribe in those words, Mr. Treverton took down one of 
the battered pewter pots, and refreshed himself with a pint 
of beer. 

Shrowl shifted the gridiron to a clear place in the firo, 
and chuckled sarcastically. 

“ Who the devil would you have me leave my money 
to?” cried Mr. Treverton, overhearing him. “ To my 
brother, who thinks me a brute now ; who would think me 
a fool then ; and who would encourage swindling, anyhow, 
by spending all my money among doxies and strolling play- 
ers? To the child of that player- woman, whom I have never 
set eyes on, who has been brought up to hate me, and who 
would turn hypocrite directly by pretending, for decency’s 
sake, to be sorry for my death? To you, you human bab- 
oon ! — you, who would set up a usury office directly, and 
prey upon the widow, the fatherless, and the unfortunate 
generally, all over the world? Your good health, Mr. 
Shrowl! I can laugh as well as you— especially when I 
know I’m not going to leave you sixpence.” 

Shrowl, in his turn, began to get a little irritated now. 
The jeering civility which he had chosen to assume on first 
entering the room gave place to his habitual surliness of 
manner and his natural growling intonation of voice. 

“You just let me alone— will you?” he said, sitting 
down sulkily to his breakfast. “I’ve done joking for to- 
day; suppose you finish too. What’s the use of talking 
nonsense about your money? You must leave it to some- 
body.” 

“Yes, I will,” said Mr. Treverton. “ I will leave it, as 
I have told you over and over again, to the first somebody 
I can find who honestly despises money, and who can’t be 
made the worse, therefore, by having it.” 

“ That means nobody,” grunted Shrowl. 

“ I know it does!” retorted his master. 

Before Shrowl could utter a word of rejoinder, there was 
a ring at the gate -bell of the cottage. 

“Go out,” said Mr. Treverton, “and see what that is. 
If it’s a woman visitor, show her what a scare-crow you 
are, and frighten her away. If it’s a man visitor ” 

“ If it’s a man visitor,” interposed Shrowl, “I’ll punch 
his head for interrupting me at my breakfast.” 

Mr, Treverton filled and lighted his pipe during his serv- 


THE DEAD SECRET, 73 

ant’s absence. Before the tobacco was well alight, Shrowl 
returned, and reported a man visitor. 

“ Did you punch his head?” asked Mr. Treverton. 

” No,” said Shrowl. ” picked up his letter. He poked 
it under the gate and went away. Here it is. ” 

The letter was written on foolscap paper, superscribed in 
a round, legal hand. As Mr. Treverton opened it, two slips 
cut f]*om newspapers dropped out. One fell on the table 
before which he was sitting; the other fluttered to the 
floor. This last slip Shrowl picked up and looked over its 
contents, without troubling himself to go through the cere- 
mony of first asking leave. 

After slowly drawing in and slowly puffing out again one 
mouthful of tobacco-smoke, Mr. Treverton began to read 
the letter. As his eye fell on the first lines, his lips began 
to work round the mouth-piece of the pipe in a manner 
that was very unusual with him. The letter was not long 
enough to require him to turn over the first leaf of it — it 
ended at the bottom of the opening sheet. He read it 
down to the signature — then looked up to the address, and 
Avent through it again from the beginning. His lips still 
continued to work round the mouth piece of the pipe, but 
he smoked no more. When he had finished the second 
reading, he set the letter down very gently on the table, 
looked at his servant with an unaccustomed vacancy in the 
expression of his eyes, and took the pipe out of his mouth 
with a hand that trembled a little. 

“Shrowl,” he said, very quietly, “my brother, the cap- 
tain, is drowned.” 

“I know he is,” answered Shrowl, Avithout looking up 
from the newspaper-slip. “I’m reading about it here.” 

‘ ‘ The last words my brother said to me when we quar- 
reled about the player- woman,” continued Mr. Treverton, 
speaking as much to himself as to his servant, ‘ ‘ were that 
I should die without one kind feeling in my heart toward 
any living creature.” 

“So you Avill,” muttered Shrowl, turning the slip over 
to see if there was anything Avorth reading at the back 
of it. 

“I wonder what he thought about me when he Avas 
dying?” said Mr. Treverton, abstractedly, taking up the 
letter again from the table. 

“He didn’t waste a thought on you or anybody else,” 
remarked ShroAvl. “ If he thought at all, he thought about 
how he could save his life. When he had done thinking 
about that, he had done living too.” With this expression 
of opinion Mr. Shrowl Avent to the beer-barrel, and drew 
his morning draught. 

“ Damn that player- woman !” muttered Mr. Treverton. 


74 


XHE DEAD SECRET. 


As he said the words his face darkened and his lips closed 
firmly. He smothed the letter out on the table. There 
seemed to be some doubt in his mind whether he had mas- 
tered all its contents yet — some idea that there ought to be 
more in it than he had yet discovered. In going over it 
for the third time, he read it to himself aloud and very 
slowly, as if he was determined to fix every separate word 
firmly in his memory. This was the letter : 

“Sir,— As the old legal adviser and faithful friend of 
your family, I am desired by Mrs. Frankland, formerly 
Miss Treverton, to acquaint you with the sad news of your 
brother’s death. This deplorable event occurred onboard 
the ship of which he was captain, during a gale of wind in 
which the vessel was lost on a reef of rocks off the island 
of Antigua. I inclose a detailed account of the shipwreck, 
extracted from the Times, by which you will see that your 
brother died nobly in the performance of his duty toward 
the officers and men whom he commanded. I also send a 
slip from the local Cornish paper, containing a memoir of 
the deceased gentleman. 

“ Before closing' this communication, I must add that no 
will has been found, after the most rigorous search, among 
the papers of the late Captain Treverton. Having dis- 
posed, as you kfiow, of Porthgenna, the only property of 
which he was possessed at the time of his death was per- 
sonal property, derived from the sale of his estate; and 
this, in conseqitence of his dying intestate, will go in due 
course of law todiis daughter, as his nearest of kin. 

“ I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

“Alexander Nixon.” 

The newspaper- slip, which had fallen on the table, con- 
tained the paragraph from the Times. The slip from the 
Cornish paper, which had dropped to the floor, ShrowT 
poked under his master’s eyes, in a fit of temporary civil- 
ity, as soon as he had done reading it. Mr. Treverton took 
not the slightest notice either of the one paragraph or the 
other. He still sat looking at the letter, even after he had 
read it for the third time. 

“ Why don’t you give the strip of print a turn, as well 
as the sheet of writing?” asked Shrowl. “Why don’t 
you read about what a great man your brother was, and 
what a good life he led, and what a wonderful handsome 
daughter he’s left behind him, and what a capital mar- 
riage she's made along with the man that’s owner of your 
old family estate? She don’t want your money now, at 
any rate! The ill wind that blowed her father’s ship on 
the rocks has blowed forty thousand pounds of gold into 
her lap. Why don't you read about it? She and her hus- 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


75 


band have got a better house in Corn wall than you have 
got here. Ain’t you glad of that? They were going to 
have repaired the place from top to bottom for your 
brother to go and live along with ’em in clover when he 
came back from sea. Who will ever repair a place for 
you? I wonder whether your niece would knock the old 
house about for your sake, now, if you was to clean your- 
self up, and go and ask her?” 

At the last question, Shrowl paused in the work of ag- 
gravation — not for want of more words, but for Avant of 
encouragement to utter them. For the first time since 
they had kept house together, he had tried to provoke his 
master and had failed. Mr. Treverton listened, or ap- 
peared to listen, without moving a muscle — without the 
faintest change to anger in his face. The only words he 
said when Shrowl had done were these two: 

” Go out!” 

Shrowl was not an easy man to move, but he absolutely 
changed color when he heard himself suddenly ordered to 
leave the. room. 

” Go out!’' reiterated Mr. Treverton. “And hold your 
tongue henceforth and forever about my brother and my 
brother’s daughter. I never have set eyes upon the player- 
woman’s child, and I never will. Hold your tongue — leave 
me alone— go out!” 

“ I’ll be even with him for this,” thought Shrowl, as he 
slowly withdrew from the room. 

When he had closed the door, he listened outside of it, 
and heard Mr. Treverton push aside his chair, and walk 
up and down, talking to himself. Judging by the con- 
fused words that escaped him, Shrowl concluded that his 
thoughts were still running on the “ pi aj^er- woman,” Avho 
had set his brother and himself at variance. He seemed 
to feel a barbarous sense of relief in venting his dissatis- 
faction with himself, after the news of Captain Treverton’s 
death, on the memory of the woman whom he hated so 
bitterly, and on the child whom she had left behind her. 

After awhile the low rumbling tones of his voice ceased 
altogether. ShroAvl peeped through the key-hole, and saw 
that he was reading the neAvspaper-slips which contained 
the account of the shipwreck and the memoir of his brother. 
The latter adverted to some of those family particulars 
which the Vicar of Long Beckley had mentioned to his 
guest; and the writer of the memoir concluded by express- 
ing a hope that the bereavement Avhich Mr. and Mrs. 
Fraiikland had suffered would not interfere with ther proj- 
ect for repairing Porthgenna Tower, after they had gone 
the length already of sending a builder to survey the place. 
Something in the wording of that paragraph seemed to take 


76 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


Mr. Treverton’s memory back to his youth- time when the 
old family house had been his home. He whispered a few 
words to himself which gloomily referred to the days that 
were gone, rose from his chair impatiently, threw both the 
newspaper-slips into the fire, watched them while they were 
burning, and sighed when the black gossamer ashes floated 
upward on the draught, and were lost in the chimney. 

The sound of that sigh startled Shrowl as the sound of a 
pistol-shot might have startled another man. His bull-ter- 
rier eyes opened wide in astonishment, and he shook his 
head ominously as he walked away from the door. 


CHAPTER II. 

WILL THEY COME ? 

The housekeeper at Forth genna Tower had just com- 
pleted the necessary preparations for the reception of her 
master and mistress, at the time mentioned in Mrs. Frank- 
land’s letter from St. Swithin’s-on-Sea, when she was 
startled by receiving a note sealed with black wax, and sur- 
rounded by a thick mourning border. The note briefly 
communicated the news of Captain Treverton’s death, and 
informed her that the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to 
Porthgenna was deferred for an indefinite period. 

By the same post the builder, who was superintending 
the renovation of the west staircase, also received a letter, 
requesting him to send in his account as soon as the repairs 
on which he was then engaged were completed ; and telling 
him that Mr. Frankland was unable, for the present, to 
give any further attention to the project for making the 
north rooms habitable. On the receipt of this communica 
tion, the builder withdrew himself and his men as soon as 
the west stairs and balusters had been made secure ; and 
Porthgenna Tower was again left to the care of the house- 
keeper and her servant, without master or mistress, friends 
or strangers, to thread its solitary passages or enliven its 
empty rooms. 

From this time eight months passed away, and the house- 
keeper heard nothing of her master and mistress, except 
through the medium of paragraphs in the local newspaper, 
which dubiously referred to the probability of their occupy- 
ing the old house and interesting themselves in the affairs 
of their tenantry, at no very distant period. Occasionally, 
too, when business took him to the post-town, the steward 
collected reports about his employers among the old friends 
and dependents of the Treverton family. 

From these sources of information, the housekeeper was 
led to conclude that Mr. and Mrs. Frankland had returned 
to Long Beckley, after receiving the news of Captain Trev- 


mE DEAD SECRET. 


77 

ertoii’s death, and had lived there for some months in 
strict retirement. When they left that place, they moved, 
(if the newspaper report was to be credited) to the neigh- 
borhood of London, and occupied the house of some friends 
who were traveling on the Continent. Here they must 
have remained for some time, for the new year came and 
brought no rumors of any change in their place of abode. 
January and February passed without any news of them. 
Early in March the steward had occasion to go to the post- 
town. 

When he returned to Porthgenna, he came back with a 
new report relating to Mr. and Mrs. Frankland, which ex- 
cited the housekeeper’s interest in an extraordinary de- 
gree. In two different quarters, each highly respectable, 
the steward had heard it facetiously announeed that the 
domestic responsibilities of his master and mistress were 
likely to be increased by their having a nurse to engage 
and a crib to buy at the end of the spring or the beginning 
of the summer. In plain English, among the many babies 
who might be expected to make their appearance in the 
world in the course of the next three months, there was 
one who would inherit the name of Frankland, and who 
(if the infant luckily turned out to be a boy) would cause a 
sensation throughout West Cornwall as heir to the Forth 
genna estate. 

In the next month, the month of April, before the house 
keeper and the steward had done discussing their last and 
most important fragment of news, the postman made his 
Avelcome appearance at Porthgenna Tower, and brought 
another note from Mrs. Frankland. The housekeeper’s 
face brightened with unaccustomed pleasure and sur])rise 
as she read the first line. The letter announced that the 
long- deferred visit of her master and mistress to the old 
house would take place early in May, and that they might 
be expected to arrive any day from the first to the tenth of 
the nionth. 

The reasons which had led the owners of Porthgenna to 
fix a period, at last, for visiting their country-seat, were 
connected with certain particulars into which Mrs. Frank - 
land had not thought it advisable to enter in her letter. 
The plain facts of the case were, that a little discussion had 
arisen between the husband and wife in relation to the 
next place of residence which they should select, after the 
return from the Continent of the friends whose house they 
were occupying. Mr. Frankland had very reasonably sug 
gested returning again to Long Beckley — not only because 
all their oldest friends lived in the neighborhood, but also 
(and circumstances made this an important consideration) 
because the place had the advantage of possessing an excel 


THE DEAD SECEET, 


*78 

lent resident medical man. Unfortunately this latter ad- 
vantage, so far from carrying any weight with it in Mrs. 
Frankland’s estimation, actually prejudiced her mind 
against the project of going to Long Beckley. She had al- 
ways, she acknowledged, felt an unreasonable antipathy to 
the doctor there. He might be a very skillful, an extreinely 
polite, and an undeniably respectable man; but she never 
had liked him, and never should, and she was resolved to 
oppose the plan for living at Long Beckley, because the exe- 
cution of it would oblige her to commit herself to his care. 

Two other places of residence were next suggested ; but 
Mrs. Frankland had the same objection to oppose to both 
— in each case the resident doctor would be a stranger to 
her, and she did not like the notion of being attended by a 
stranger. Finally, as she had all along anticipated, the 
choice of the future abode was left entirely to her own in- 
clinations; and then, to the amazement of her husband and 
her friends, she immediately decided on going to Porth- 
genna. She had formed this strange project, and was now 
resolved on executing it, partly because she was more curi- 
ous than ever to see the place again ; partly because the 
doctor, who had been with her mother in Mrs. Treverton’s 
last illness, and who had attended her through all her own 
little maladies when she was a child, Avas still living and 
practicing in the Porthgenna neighborhood. Her father 
and the doctor had been old cronies, and had met for years 
at the same chess-board every Saturday night. They had 
kept up their friendship, when circumstances separated 
them, by exchanges of Christmas presents every year; and 
when the sad news of the captain’s death had reached 
Cornwall, the doctor had written a letter of sympathy and 
condolence to Eosamond, speaking in such terms of his 
former friend and patron as she could never forget. He 
must be a nice, fatherly old man now, the man of all oth- 
ers who was fittest, on every account, to attend her. In 
short, Mrs. Frankland was just as strongly prejudiced in 
favor of employing the Porthgenna doctor as she was 
prejudiced against employing the Long Beckley doctor; 
and she ended, as all young married women with affection- 
ate husbands may, and do end, Avhenever they please — by 
carrying her own point, and having her own way. 

On the first of May the west rooms were all ready for 
the reception of the master and mistress of the house. 
The beds were aired, the carpets cleaned, the sofas and 
chairs uncov^pred. The housekeeper put on her satin gown 
and her garnet brooch; the maid followed suit, at a re- 
spectful distance, in brown merino and a pink ribbon ; and 
the steward, determining not to be outdone by the women, 
arrayed himself in a black brocaded waistcoat, which al- 


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70 


most rivaled the gloom and grandeur of the housekeeper's 
satin gown. The day wore on, evening closed in, bed-time 
came, and there were no signs yet of Mr. and Mrs. Frank- 
land. 

But the first was an early day on which to expect them. 
The steward thought so, and the housekeeper added that 
it would be foolish to feel disappointed, even if they did 
not arrive until the fifth. The fifth came, and still noth- 
ing happened. The sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth fol- 
lowed, and no sound of the expected carriage -wheels came 
near the lonely house. 

On the tenth and last day, the housekeeper, the steward, 
and the maid, all three rose earlier than usual ; all three 
opened and shut doors, and went up and down-stairs 
oftener than was needful ; all three looked out perpetually 
toward the moor and the high-road, and thought the view 
flatter and duller and emptier than ever it had appeared 
to them before. The day waned, the sunset caiiie ; dark- 
ness changed the perpetual looking-out of the housekeeper, 
tlie steward, and the maid into perpetual listening; ten 
o’clock struck, and still there was nothing to be heard 
when they went to the open window but the wearisome 
beating of the surf on the sandy shore. 

The housekeeper began to calculate the time that would 
be consumed on the railway journey from London to Ex- 
eter, and on the posting journey afterward through Corn- 
wall to Porthgenna. When had Mr. and Mrs. Frankland 
left Exeter?— that was the first question. And what delays 
might they have encountered afterward in getting horses? 
— that was the second. The housekeeper and the steward 
differed in debating these points; but both agreed that it 
was necessary to sit up until midnight, on the chance of 
t he master and mistress arriving late. The maid, hearing 
her sentence of banishment from bed for the next two 
hours pronounced by the superior authorities, yawned and 
sighed mournfully — was reproved by the steward — and 
was furnished by the housekeeper with a book of hymns 
to read to keep up her spirits. 

Twelve o’clock struck, and still the monotonous beating 
of the surf, varied occasionally by those loud, mysterious, 
cracking noises which make themselves heard at night in 
an old house, were the only audible sounds. The steward 
was dozing ; the maid was fast asleep under the soothing 
influence of the hymns; the liousekeeper was wide awake, 
with her eyes fixed on the window, and her head shaking 
forebodingly from time to time. At the last stroke of the 
clock she left her chair, listened attentively, and still hear- 
ing nothing, shook the maid irritably by the shoulder, and 
stamped on the floor to arouse the steward. 

! ^ 


00 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


“We may go to bed,” she said. “They are not com* 
ing. This is the second time they have disappointed us. 
The first time the captain’s death stood in the way. What 
stops them now ! Another death? I shouldn’t wonder if it 
was.” 

“Now I think of it, no more should I,” said the stew- 
ard, ominously knitting his brows. 

“Another death!” repeated the housekeeper, supersti- 
tiously. “ If it is another death, I should take it, in their 
place, as a warning to keep away from the house. ’ ’ 


CHAPTER III. 

MRS. JAZEPH. 

If, instead of hazarding the guess that a second death 
stood in the way of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland’s arrival at 
Porthgenna, the housekeeper had, by way of variety, sur- 
mised this time that a birth was the obstacle which de- 
layed them, she might have established her character as a 
wise woman, by hitting at random on the actual truth. 
Her master and mistress had started from London on the 
ninth of May, and had got through the greater part of 
their railway journey, when they were suddenly obliged 
to stop, on Mrs. Frank! and' s account, at the station of a 
small town in Somersetshire. The little visitor, who was 
destined to increase the domestic responsibilities of the 
young married couple, had chosen to enter on the scene, in 
the character of a robust boy -baby, a month earlier than 
he had been expected, and had "modestly preferred to 
make his first appearance in a small Somersetshire inn, 
rather than wait to be ceremoniously welcomed to life in 
the great house of Porthgenna, which he was one day to 
inherit. 

Very few events had ever produced a greater sensation 
in the town of West Winston than the one small event of 
the unexpected stoppage of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland’s 
journey at that place. Never since the last election had 
the landlord and landlady of the Tiger’s Head Hotel 
bustled about their house in such a fever of excitement as 
possessed them when Mr. Frankland’s servant and Mrs. 
Frankland’s maid drew up at the door in a fly from the 
station, to announce that their master and mistress were 
behind, and that the largest and quietest rooms in the 
hotel were wanted immediately, under the most unex- 
pected circumstances. Never since he had triumphantly 
passed his examination had young Mr. Or ridge, the nevr 
doctor, who had started in life by purchasing the West 
Winston practice, felt such a thrill of pleasurable agitation 
pervade him from top to toe as when he heard that the 




THE DEAD SECRET 


81 


wife of a blind gentleman of great fortune had been taken 
ill on the railway journey from London to Devonshire, and 
required all that his skill and attention could do for her 
without a moment’s delay. 

Never since the last archery meeting and fancy fair had 
the ladies of the town been favored with such an all-ab- 
sorbing subject for conversation as was now afforded to 
them by Mrs. Frankland’s mishap. Fabulous accounts of 
the wife’s beauty and the husband’s fortune poured from 
the original source of the Tiger’s Head, and trickled 
through the highways and by-ways of the little town. 
There were a dozen different reports, one more elaborately 
false than the other, about Mr. Frankland’s blindness, and 
the cause of it ; about the lamentable condition in which 
his wife had arrived at the hotel ; and about the painful 
sense of responsibility which had unnerved the inexperi- 
enced Mr. Orridge from the first moment when he set eyes 
on his patient. It was not till eight o’clock in the evening 
that the public mind was relieved at last from all suspense 
by an announcement that the child was born, and scream- 
ing lustily ; that the mother was wonderfully well, consid- 
ering all things ; and that Mr. Orridge had coyered himself 
with distinction by the skill, tenderness, and attention with 
which he had performed his duties. 

On the next day, and the next, and for a week after that, 
the accounts were still favorable. But on the tenth day a 
catastrophe was reported. The nurse who was in attend- 
ance on Mrs. Frankland had been suddenly taken ill, and 
was rendered quite incapable of performing any further 
service for at least a week to come, and perhaps for a much 
longer period. 

In a large town this misfortune might have been readily 
remedied, but in a place like West Winston it was not so 
easy to supply the loss of an experienced nurse at a few 
hours’ notice. When Mr. Orridge was consulted in the new 
emergency, he candidly acknowledged that he required a 
little time for consideration before he could undertake to 
find another professed nurse of sufficient character and ex- 
perience to wait on a lady like Mrs. Frankland. Mr. 
Frankland suggested telegraphing to a medical friend in 
London for a nurse, but the doctor was unwilling for many 
reasons to adopt that plan, except as a last resource. It 
would take some time to find the right person, and to send 
her to West Winston; and, moreover, he would infinitely 
prefer employing a woman with whose character and ca- 
pacity he was himself acquainted. 

He therefore proposed that Mrs. Frankland should be 
trusted for a few hours to the care of her maid, under 
supervision of the landlady of the Tiger’s Head, while ho 


83 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


made inquiries in the neighborhood. If the inquiries pro- 
duced no satisfactory result, he should be ready, when he 
called in the evening, to adopt Mr. Frankland’s idea of 
telegraphing to London for a nurse. On proceeding to 
make the investigation that he had proposed, Mr. Orridge, 
although he spared no trouble, met with no success. He 
found plenty of volunteers for the office of nurse, but they 
were all loud-voiced, clumsy-handed, heavy-footed coun- 
try-women, kind and willing enough, but sadly awkward, 
blundering attendants to place at the bedside of such a 
lady as Mrs. Frankland. The morning hours passed away, 
and the afternoon came, and still Mr. Orridge had found 
no substitute for the invalided nurse whom he could venture 
to engage. 

At two o’clock he had half an hour’s drive before him to 
a country-house where he had a child-patient to see. 
“ Perhaps I may remember somebody who may do, on the 
way out or on the way back again,” thought Mr. Orridge, 
as he got into his gig. “I have some hours at my dis- 
posal still, before the time comes for my evening visit 
at the inn.” 

Puzzling his brains, with the best intention in the world, 
all along the road to the country-house, Mr. Orridge 
reached his destination without having arrived at any 
other conclusion than that he might just as well state his 
difficulty to Mrs. Norbury, the lady whose» child he was 
about to prescribe for. He had called on her when he 
bought the West Winston practice, and had found her one 
of those frank, good-humored, middle-aged women who are 
generally designated by the epithet “motherly.” Her 
husband was a country squire, famous for his old politics, 
his old stories, and his old wines. He had seconded his 
wife’s hearty reception of the new doctor, with all the 
usual jokes about never giving him any employment, and 
never letting any bottles into the house except the bottles 
that went down into the cellar. Mr. Orridge had been 
amused by the husband and pleased with the wife; and he 
thought it might beat least worth while, before he gave up 
all hope of finding a fit nurse, to ask Mrs. Norbury, as an 
old resident in the West Winston neighborhood, for a word 
of advice. 

Accordingly, after seeing the child, and pronouncing that 
there were no symptoms about the little patient which need 
cause the slightest alarm to anybody, Mr. Orridge paved 
the way for a statement of the difficulty that beset him by 
asking Mrs. Norbury if she had heard of the “interesting 
event ” that had happened at the Tiger’s Head. 

“You mean,” answered Mrs. Norbury, who was a down- 
right woman, and a resolute speaker of the plainest possi- 


THE DEAD SECRET 


83 


ble English — “you mean, have I heard about that poor 
unfortunate lady who was taken ill on her journey, and 
who had a child born at the inn? We have heard so much, 
and no more — living as we do, (thank Heaven!) out of 
reach of the West Winston gossip. How is the lady? 
Who is she? Is the child well? Is she tolerably comforta- 
ble? poor thing! Can I send her anything, or do anything 
for her?” 

“ You would do a great thing for her and render a great 
assistance to me,” said Mr. Orridge, “if you could tell me 
of any respectable woman in this neighborhood who would 
be a proper nurse for her. ’ ’ 

“ You don’t mean to say that the poor creature has not 
got a nurse?” exclaimed Mrs. Norbury. 

“ She has had the best nurse in West Winston,” replied 
Mr. Orridge. “But, most unfortunately, the woman was 
taken ill this morning, and was obliged to go home. I am 
now at my wits’ end for somebody to supply her place. 
Mrs. Frankland has been used to the luxury of being well 
Avaited on ; and where I am to find an attendant, who is 
likely to satisfy her, is more than I can tell.” 

“Frankland, did you say her name was?” inquired Mrs. 
Norbury. 

“Yes. She is, I understand, a daughter of that Captain 
Treverton who was lost Avith his ship a year ago in the 
West Indies. Perhaps you may remember the account of 
the disaster in the newspapers?” 

“ Of course I do! and I remember the captain too. I was 
acquainted with him when he Avas a young man, at Ports- 
mouth. His daughter and I ought not to be strangers, es- 
pecially under such circumstances as the poor thing is 
placed in now. I Avill call at the inn, Mr. Orridge, as soon 
as you Avill alloAv me to introduce myself to her. But, in 
the meantime, Avhat is to be done in this difficulty about 
the nurse? Who is Avith Mrs. Frankland now?” 

“ Her maid; but she is a very young Avoman, and doesn’t 
understand nursing duties. The landlady of the inn is 
ready to help when she can ; but then she has constant de- 
mands on her time and attention. I suppose Ave shall have 
to telegraph to London and get somebody sent here by 
railway. ’ ’ 

“ And that will take time, of course. And the new nurse 
may turn out to be a drunkard or a thief, or both — when 
you have got her here,” said the outspoken Mrs. Norbury. 
“ Bear, dear me! can’t Ave do something better than that? 
I am ready, I am sure, to take any trouble, or make any 
sacrifice, if I can be of use to Mrs. Frankland. Do you 
know, Mr. Orridge, I think it AAmuld be a good plan if Ave 
consulted my housekeeper, Mrs. Jazeph. She is an odd 


84 


THE DEAD SECRET 


woman, with an odd name, you will say; but she has lived 
with me in this house more than five years, and she may 
know of somebody in our neighborhood who might suit 
you, though I don’t.” With those words, Mrs. Norbury 
rang the bell, and ordered the servant who answered it to 
tell Mrs. Jazeph that she was wanted up-stairs imme' 
d lately. 

After the lapse of a minute or so, a soft knock was heard 
at the door, and the housekeeper entered the room. 

Mr. Orridge looked at her the moment she appeared, 
with an interest and curiosity for which he was hardly able 
to account. He had judged her, at a rough guess, to be a 
woman of about fifty years of age. At the first glance, his 
medical eye detected that some of the intricate machinery 
of the nervous system had gone wrong with Mrs. Jazeph. 
He noted the painful working of the muscles of her face, 
and the hectic fiush that fiew into her cheeks when she 
entered the room and found a visitor there. He" observed 
a strangely scared look in her eyes, and remarked that it 
did not leave them when the rest of her face became grad- 
ually composed. “That woman has had some dreadful 
fright, some great grief, or some wasting complaint,” he 
thought to himself. “ I wonder which it is?” 

“This is Mr. Orridge, the medical gentleman who has 
lately settled at West Winston,” said Mrs. Norbury, ad- 
dressing the housekeeper. “ He is in attendance on a lady 
who was obliged to stop, on her journey westward, at our 
station, and who is now staying at the Tiger’s Head. You 
have heard something about it, have you not, Mrs. Jazeph !” 

Mrs. Jazeph, standing just inside the door, looked re- 
spectfully toward the doctor, and answered in the affirma- 
tive. Although she only said the two common words, 
“Yes, ma’am,” in a quiet, uninterested way, Mr. Orridge 
was struck by the sweetness and tenderness of her voice. 
If he had not been looking at her he would have supposed 
it to be the voice of a young woman. His eyes remained 
fixed on her after she had spoken, though he felt that they 
ought to have been looking toward her mistress. He, the 
most unobservant of men in such things, found himself 
noticing her dress, so that he remembered, long afterward, 
the form of the spotless muslin cap that primly covered 
her smooth gray hair, and the quiet brown color of the silk 
dress that fitted so neatly and hung around her in such 
spare and disciplined folds. The little confusion which she 
evidently felt at finding herself the object of the doctor’s 
attention did not betray her into the slightest awkwardness 
of gesture or manner. If there can be such a thing, ph^^s- 
ically speaking, as the grace of restraint, that was the 
grace which seemed to govern Mrs. Jazeph ’s slightest move- 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


85 


ments; which led her feet smoothly over the carpet as she 
advanced when her mistress next spoke to her; which gov- 
erned the action of her wan right hand as it rested lightly 
on a table by her side, while she stopped to hear the next 
question that was addressed to her. 

“Well,” continued Mrs. Norbury, “this poor lady was 
just getting on comfortably, when the nurse who was look- 
ing after her fell ill this morning ; and there she is now, in 
a strange place, with a first child, and no proper attend- 
ance — no woman of age and experience to help her as she 
ought to be helped. We want somebody fit to ’svait on a 
delicate woman who has seen nothing of the rough side of 
humanity. Mr. Orridge can find nobody at a day’s notice, 
and I can tell him of nobody. Can you help us, Mrs. Ja- 
zeph? Are there any women down in the village or among 
Mr. Norbury’ s tenants who understand nursing, and have 
some tact and tenderness to recommend them into the bar- 
gain?” 

Mrs. Jazeph reflected for a little while, and then said, 
very respectfully, but very briefly also, and still without 
any appearance of interest in her manner, that she knew 
of no one whom she could rocomnjend. 

“ Don’t make too sure of that till you have thought a 
little longer, ” said Mrs. Norbury. “I have a particular 
interest in serving this lady, for Mr. Orridge told me just 
before you came in that she is the daughter of Captain 
Treverton, whose shipwreck ” 

The instant those words were spoken Mrs. Jazeph turned 
round with a start and looked at the doctor. Apparently 
forgetting that her right hand was on the table, she moved 
it so suddenly that it struck against a bronze statuette of a 
dog placed on some writing materials. The statuette fell 
to the ground, and Mrs. Jazeph stooped to pick it up with 
a cry of alarm which seemed strangely exaggerated by 
comparison with the trifling nature of the accident. 

“ Bless the woman ! what is she frightened about?” ex- 
claimed Mrs. Norbury. “The dog is not hurt— put it back 
again! This is the first time, Mrs. Jazeph, that I ever 
knew you to do an awkward thing. You may take that 
as a compliment, I think. Well, as I was saying, this lady 
is the daughter of Captain Treverton, whose dreadful ship- 
wreck we all read about in the papers. I knew her father 
in my early days, and on that account I am doubly anx- 
ious to be of service to her now. Do think again. Is there 
nobody within reach who can be trusted to nurse her?” 

The doctor, still watching Mrs. Jazeph with that secret 
medical interest of his in her case, had seen her turn so 
deadly pale when she started and looked toward him that 
he would not have been surprised if she had fainted on thq 


86 


THE dead secret. 


spot. He now observed that she changed color again when 
her mistress left off speaking. The hectic red tinged her 
cheeks once more with two bright spots. Her timid eyes 
wandered uneasily about the room; and her fingers, as she 
clasped her hands together, interlaced themselves mechan- 
ically. “That would be an interesting case to treat,” 
thought the doctor, following every nervous movement of 
the housekeeper’s hands with watchful eyes. 

“Do think again,” repeated Mrs. Norbury. “I am so 
anxious to help this poor ladj^ through her difficulty, if I 
can.” 

“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Jazeph, in faint, trem- 
bling tones, but still always with the same sweetness in her 
voice — “ very sorry that I can think of no one who is fit; 
but ” 

She stopped. No shy child on its first introduction to 
the society of strangers could have looked more discon- 
certed than she looked now. Her eyes were on the 
ground; her color was deepening; the fingers of her clasped 
hands were working together faster and faster every mo- 
ment. 

“But what?” asked Mrs. Norbury. 

“I was about to say, ma’am,” answered Mrs. Jazeph, 
speaking with the greatest difficulty and uneasiness, and 
never raising her eyes to her mistress’ face, “that, rather 
than this lady should want for a nurse, I would — consider- 
ing the interest, ma’am, which you take in her— I would, 
if you thought you could spare me ” 

“What, nurse her yourself!” exclaimed Mrs. Norbury. 
“ Upon my word, although you have got to it in rather a 
roundabout way, you have come to the point at last, in a 
manner which does infinite credit to your kindness of 
heart and your readiness to make yourself useful. As to 
sparing you, of course I am not so selfish, under the cir- 
cumstances, as to think twice of the inconvenience of los- 
ing my housekeeper. But the question is, are you com- 
petent as well as willing? Have you ever had any practice 
in nursing?” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” answered Mrs. Jazeph, still without rais- 
ing her eyes from the ground. “Shortly after my mar- 
riage” (the flush disappeared, and her face turned pale 
again as she said those words), “I had some practice in 
nursing, and continued it at intervals until the time of my 
husband’s death. I only presume to offer myself, sir,” 
she went on, turning toward the doctor, and becoming 
]nore earnest and self-possessed in her manner as she did 
so— “ I only presume to offer myself, with my mistress’ 
permission, as a substitute for a nurse until some better 
qualified person can be found.” 


THE DEAD SECRET 


87 


“What do you say, Mr. Orridge?” asked Mrs. Nor- 
bury. 

It had been the doctor’s turn to start when he first heard 
Mrs. Jazeph propose herself for the office of nurse. He 
hesitated before he answered Mrs. Norbury’s question, 
then said : 

“ I can have but one doubt about the propriety of thank- 
fully accepting Mrs. Jazeph’s offer.” 

Mrs. Jazeph’s timid eyes looked anxiously and per^ 
plexedly at him as he spoke. Mrs. Norbury, in her down- 
right, abrupt way, asked immediately what the doubt was. 

“I feel some uncertainty,” replied Mr. Orridge, “as to 
whether Mrs. Jazeph — she will pardon me, as a medical 
man, for mentioning it— as to whether Mrs. Jazeph is 
strong enough, and has her nerves sufficiently under con- 
trol to perform the duties which she is so kindly ready to 
undertake.” 

In spite of the politeness of the explanation, Mrs. Jazeph 
was evidently disconcerted and distressed by it. A certain 
quiet, uncomplaining sadness, which it was very touching 
to see, overspread her face as she turned away, without an- 
other word, and walked slowly to the door. 

“Don’t go yet!” cried Mrs. Norbury, kindly, “or, at 
least, if you do go, come back again in five minutes. lam 
quite certain we shall have something more to say to you 
then.” 

Mrs. Jazeph’s eyes expressed her thanks in one grateful 
glance. They looked so much brighter than usual while 
they rested on her mistress’ face, that Mrs. Norbury half 
doubted whether the tears were not just rising in them at 
that moment. Before she could look again, Mrs. Jazeph 
had courtesied to the doctor, and had noiselessly left the 
room. 

“Now we are alone, Mr. Orridge,” said Mrs. Norbury, 
“I may tell you, with all submission to your medical judg 
ment, that you are a little exaggerating Mrs. Jazeph’s 
nervous infirmities. She looks poorly enough, I own; 
but, after five years’ experience of her, I can tell you that 
she is stronger than she looks, and I honestly think you 
will be doiug good service to Mrs. Frankland if you try 
our volunteer nurse, at least for a day or two. She is 
the gentlest, tenderest creature I ever met with, and con 
scientious to a fault in the performance of any duty that 
she undertakes. Don’t be under any delicacy about tak- 
ing her away. I gave a dinner-party last week, and shall 
not give another for some time to come. I never could 
have spared my housekeeper more easily than I can spare 
her now.” 

“ I ^noi sure I may offer Mrs. Frankland’s thanks to you 


88 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


as well as my own,” said Mr. Orridge. “After what you 
have said, it would be ungracious and ungrateful in me not 
to follow your advice. But will you excuse me if I ask 
one question? Did you ever hear that Mrs. Jazeph was 
subject to fits of any kind?” 

“Never.” 

“Not even to hysterical affections, now and then?” 

“Never, since she has been in this house.” 

“ You surprise me, there is something in her look and 
manner ” 

“ Yes, yes; everybody remarks that at first; but it sim- 
ply means that she is in delicate health, and that she has 
not led a very happy life (as I suspect) in her younger days. 
The lady from whom I had her (with an excellent charac- 
ter) told me that she had married unhappily, when she was 
in a sadly poor, unprotected state. She never says any- 
thing about her married troubles herself ; but I believe her 
husband ill-used her. However, it does not seem to me 
that this is our business. I can only tell you again that 
she has been an excellent servant here for the last five 
years, and that, in your place, poorly as she may look, I 
should consider her as the best nurse that Mrs. Frankland 
could possibly wish for, under the circumstances. There 
is no need for me to say any more. Take Mrs. Jazeph, or 
telegraph to London for a stranger— the decision of course 
rests with you.” 

Mr. Orridge thought he detected a slight tone of irrita- 
bility in Mrs. Norbury’s last sentence. He was a prudent 
man; and he suppressed any doubts he might still feel in 
reference to Mrs. Jazeph’s physical capacities for nursing, 
rather than risk offending the most important lady in the 
neighborhood at the outset of his practice in West Winston 
as a medical man. 

“ I cannot hesitate a moment after what you have been 
good enough to tell me,” he said. “Pray believe that I 
gratefully accept your kindness and your housekeeper’s 
offer. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Norbury rang the bell. It was answered on the in- 
stant by the housekeeper herself. 

The doctor wondered whether she had been listening 
outside the door, and thought it rather strange, if she had, 
that she should be so anxious to learn his decision. 

“ Mr. Orridge accepts your offer with thanks,” said Mrs. 
Norbury, beckoning to Mrs. Jazeph to advance into the 
room. “ I have persuaded him that you are not quite so 
weak and ill as you look.” 

A gleam of joyful surprise broke over the housekeeper’s 
face. It looked suddenly younger by years and years, as 
she smiled and expressed her grateful sense of the trust 


TBi] BiJAD StJCEET. 


89 


that was about to be reposed in her. For the first time, 
also, since the doctor had seen her, she ventured on speak- 
ing before she was spoken to. 

“When will my attendance be required, sir?” she asked. 

“As soon as possible,” replied Mr. Orridge. How 
quickly and brightly her dim eyes seemed to clear as she 
heard that answer ! How much more hasty than her usual 
movements was the movement with which she now turned 
round and looked appealingly at her mistress ! 

“Go whenever Mr. Orridge wants 3"Ou,” said Mrs. Nor- 
bury. “I know your accounts are always in order, and 
your keys always in their proper places. You never make 
confusion and you nevei’ leave confusion. Go, by all 
means, as soon as the doctor wants you.” 

“I suppose you have some preparations to make?” said 
Mr. Orridge. 

“None, sir, that need delay me more than half an hour,” 
answered Mrs. Jazeph. 

“This evening will be early enough,” said the doctor, 
taking his hat, and bowing to Mrs. Norbury. “ Come to 
the Tiger’s Head, and ask for me. I shall be there be- 
tween seven and eight. Many thanks again, Mrs. Nor- 
bury.” 

“ My best wishes and compliments to your patient, doc- 
tor.” 

“At the Tiger’s Head, between seven and eight this 
evening,” reiterated Mr. Orridge, as the housekeeper opened 
the door for him. 

“Between seven and eight, sir,” repeated the soft, sweet 
voice, sounding younger than ever, now that there was an 
under-note of pleasure running through its tones. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEW NURSE. 

As the clock struck seven, Mr. Orridge put on his hat to 
go to the Tiger’s Head. He had just opened his own door, 
when he was met on the step by a messenger, who sum- 
moned him immediately to a case of sudden illness in the 
poor quarter of the town. The inquiries he made satisfied 
him that the appeal was really of an urgent nature, and 
that there was no help for it but to delay his attendance 
for a little while at the inn. On reaching the bedside of 
the patient, he discovered symptoms in the case which ren- 
dered an immediate operation necessary. The performance 
of this prosessional duty occupied some time. It was a 
quarter to eight before he left his house, for the second 
time, on his way to the Tiger’s Head. 

On entering the inn door, he was informed that the 


90 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


new nurse had arrived as early as seven o’clock, and had 
been waiting for him in a room by herself ever since. 
Having received no orders from Mr. Orridge, the landlady 
had thought it safest not to introduce the stranger to Mrs, 
Frankland before the doctor came. 

“Did she ask to go up into Mrs. Frankland’s room?” in- 
quired Mr. Orridge. 

“Yes, sir,” replied the landlady. “And I thought she 
seemed rather put out when I said that I must beg her to 
wait till you got here. Will you step this way and see her 
at once, sir? She is in my parlor.” 

Mr. Orridge followed the landlady into a little room at 
the back of the house, and found Mrs. Jazeph sitting alone 
in the corner furth^jst from the window. He was rather 
surprised to see that she drew her veil down the moment 
the door was opened. 

“I am sorry you should have been kept waiting,” he 
said ; ‘ ‘ but I was called away to a patient. Besides, I told 
you between seven and eight, if you remember, and it is 
not eight o’clock yet.” 

‘ ‘ I was very anxious to be in good time, sir, ’ ’ said Mrs. 
Jazeph. 

There was an accent of restraint in the qiiiet tones in 
which she spoke which struck Mr. Orridge’s ear, and a 
little perplexed him. She was, apparently, not only afraid 
that her face might betray something, but apprehensive 
also that her voice might tell him more than her words ex- 
pressed. What feeling was she anxious to conceal? Was 
it irritation at having been kept waiting so long by herself 
in the landlady’s room?” 

“If you will follow me,” said Mr. Orridge, “ I will take 
you to Mrs. Frankland immediately.” 

Mrs. Jazeph rose slowly, and, when she was on her feet, 
rested her hand for an instant on a table near her. That 
action, momentary as it was, helped to confirm the doctor 
in his conviction of her physical unfitness for the position 
which she had volunteered to occupy. 

“You seem tired,” he said, as he led the way out of the 
door. “Surely, you did not walk all the way here?” 

“No, sir. My mistress was so kind as to let one of the 
servants drive me in the pony-chaise. ’ ’ There was the same 
restraint in her voice as she made that answer ; and still 
she never attempted to lift her veil. .While ascending the 
inn stairs Mr. Orridge mentally resolved to watch her first 
proceedings in Mrs. Frankland^ s room closely, and to send, 
after all, for tlie London nurse, unless Mrs. Jazeph showed 
remarkable aptitude in the performance of her new duties. 

The room which Mrs. Frankland occupied was situated 
at the back of the house, having been chosen in that posi- 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


91 


tion with the object of removing her as much as possible 
from the bustle and noise about the inn door. It was 
lighted by one window overlooking a few cottages, beyond 
which spread the rich grazing grounds of West Somerset- 
shire, bounded by a long, monotonous line of thickly -wooded 
hills. The bed was of the old fashioned kind, with the 
customary four posts and the inevitable damask curtains. 
It projected from the wall into the middle of the room, in 
such a situation as to keep the door on the right hand of 
the person occupying it, the window on the left, and the 
fireplace opposite the foot of the bed. On the side of the 
bed nearest the window the curtains were open, while at 
the foot, and on the side near the door, they were closely 
drawn. By this arrangement the interior of the bed was 
necessarily concealed from the view of any person on first 
entering the room. 

“ How do you find yourself to-night, Mrs. Frankland?” 
asked Mr. Orridge, reaching out his hand to withdraw the 
curtains; “ do you think you will be any the worse for a 
little freer circulation of air?” 

“ On the contrary, doctor, I shall be all the better,” was 
the answer; “but I am afraid— in case you liave ever been 
disposed to consider me a sensible woman — that my char- 
acter will suffer a little in your estimation when you see 
how I have been occupying myself for the last hour.” 

Mr. Orridge smiled as he undrew the curtains, and 
laughed outright when he looked at the mother and child. 
Mrs. Frankland had been amusing herself, and gratifying 
her taste for bright colors, by dressing out her baby with 
blue ribbons as he lay asleep ; he had a necklace, shoulder- 
knots, and bracelets, all of blue ribbon; and to complete 
the quaint finery of his costume, his mother’s smart little 
lace cap had been hitched comically on one side of his 
head. Rosamond herself, as if determined to vie with the 
baby in gayety of dress, wore a light pink jacket, orna 
mented down the bosom and over the sleeves with bows of 
white satin ribbon. Laburnum blossoms, gathered that 
morning, lay scattered about over the white counterpane, 
intermixed with some flowers of the lily of the valley, tied 
up into two nosegays with strips of cherry-colored ribbon. 
Over this varied assemblage of colors, over the baby’s 
smoothly rounded cheeks and arms, over his mother’s 
happy, youthful face, the tender light of the May evening 
poured tranquil and warm. Thoroughly appreciating the 
charm of the picture which he had disclosed on undrawing 
the curtains, the doctor stood looking at it for a few mo- 
ments, quite forgetful of the errand that had brought him 
into the room. He was only recalled to a remembrance of 


92 TEE DEAD SECRET 

the new nurse by a chance question which Mrs. Frankland 
addressed to him. 

“ I can’t help it, doctor,” said Rosamond, with a look of 
apology. “I really can’t help treating my baby, now I 
am a grown woman, just as I used to treat my doll when 
I was a little girl. Did anybody come into the room with 
you? Lenny, are you there? Have you done dinner, dar- 
ling, an<t did you drink my health when you were left at 
dessert all by yourself?” 

“Mr. Frankland is still at dinner,” said the doctor. 
“ But I certainly brought some one into the room with me. 
W here, ^ in the name of wonder, has she gone to? — Mrs. 
Jazeph!” 

The housekeeper had slipped round to the part of the 
room between the foot of the bed and the fireplace, where 
she was hidden by the curtains that still remained drawn. 
When Mr. Orridge called to her, instead of joining him 
Avhere he stood, opposite the window, she appeared at the 
other side of the bed, where the window was behind her. 
Her shadow stole darkly over the bright picture which 
tl\e doctor had been admiring. It stretched obliquely 
across the counterpane, and its dusky edges touched the 
figures of the mother and child. 

“Gracious goodness! who are you?” exclaimed Rosa- 
mond. “ A woman or a ghost?” 

Mrs. Jazeph’ s veil was up at last. Although her face 
was necessarily in shadow in the position which she had 
chosen to occupy, the doctor saw a change pass over it 
when Mrs. Frankland spoke. The lips dropped and quiv- 
ered a little; and the marks of care and age about the 
mouth deepened ; and the eyebrows contracted suddenly. 
The eyes Mr. Orridge could not see ; they were cast down 
on the counterpane at the first word that Rosamond ut- 
tered. Judging by the light of his medical experience, the 
doctor concluded that she was suffering pain, and trying to 
suppress any outward manifestation of it. “An affection 
of the heart, most likely,” he thought to himself. “She 
has concealed it from her mistress, but she can’t hide it 
from me.” 

“Who are you?” repeated Rosamond. “And what in 
the world do you stand there for— between us and the sun- 
light?” 

Mrs. Jazeph neither answered nor raised her eyes. She 
only moved back timidly to the furthest corner of the win- 
dow. 

“Did you not get a message from me this afternoon?” 
asked the doctor, appealing to Mrs. Frankland. 

“To be sure I did,” replied Rosamond. “ A very kind, 
flattering message about a new nurse. ’ ’ 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


93 


“ There she is,” said Mr. Orridge, pointing across the bed 
to Mrs. Jazeph. 

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Eosamoiid. “But of 
course it must be. Who else could have come in with you? 
I ought to have known that. Pray come here — (what is 
her name, doctor? Joseph, did you say? — No? — Jazeph?) 
— pray come nearer, Mrs. Jazeph, and let me apologize for 
speaking so abruptly to you. I am more obliged than I 
can say for your kindness in coming here, and for your 
mistress’ good nature in resigning you to me. I hope I 
shall not give you much trouble, and I am sure you will 
find the baby easy to manage. He is a perfect angel, and 
sleeps like a dormouse. Dear me! now I look at you a 
little closer, I am afraid you are in very delicate health 
yourself. Doctor, if Mrs. Jazeph would not be offended 
with me, I should almost feel inclined to say that she looks 
in want of nursing herself. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Jazeph bent down over the laburnum blossoms on 
the bed, and began hurriedly and confusedly to gather 
them together. 

“I thought as you do, Mrs. Frankland,” said Mr. 
Orridge. “But I have been assured that Mrs. Jazeph’s 
looks belie her, and that her capabilities as a nurse quite 
equal her zeal. ’ ’ 

“ Are you going to make all that laburnum into a nose- 
gay?” asked Mrs. Frankland, noticing how the new nurse 
was occupying herself. “How thoughtful of you! and 
how magnificent it will be ! I am afraid you will find the 
room very untidy. I will ring for my maid to set it to 
rights. ’ ’ 

“ If you will allow me to put it in order, ma’am, I shall 
be very glad to begin being of use to you in that way,” 
said Mrs. Jazeph. When she made the offer she looked 
up; and her eyes and Mrs. Frankland’ s met. Eosamond 
instantly drew back on the pillow, and her color altered a 
little. 

“ How strangely you look at me!” she said. 

Mrs. Jazeph started at the words, as if something had 
struck her, and moved away suddenly to the window. 

“You are not offended with me, I hope?” said Eosa- 
mond, noticing the action. “ I have a sad habit of saying 
anything that comes uppermost. And I really thought 
you looked just now as if you saw something about me that 
frightened or grieved you. Pray put the room in order, if 
you are kindly willing to undertake the trouble. And 
never mind what I say ; you will soon get used to my ways 
—and we shall be as comfortable and friendly ” 

Just as Mrs. Frankland said the words “comfortable 
^nd .friendly,” the new nurse left the window, and wei^^t 


94 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


back to the part of the room where she was hidden from 
view, between the fireplace and the closed curtains at the 
foot of the bed. Rosamond looked round to express her 
surprise to the doctor, but he turned away at the same mo- 
ment so as to occupy a position which might enable him to 
observe what Mrs. Jazeph was doing on the other side of 
the bed -curtains. 

When he first caught sight of her, her hands were both 
raised to her face. Before he could decide whether he had 
surprised her in the act of clasping them over her eyes 
or not, they changed their position, and were occupied in 
removing her bonnet. After she had placed this part of 
lier wearing apparel, and her shawl and gloves, on a chair 
in a corner of the room, she went to the dressing-table, and 
began to arrange the various useful and ornamental ob- 
jects scattered about it. She set them in order with 
remarkable dexterity and neatness, showing a taste for 
arrangement, and a capacity for discriminating between 
things that were likely to be wanted and things that were 
not, which impressed Mr. Orridge very favorably. He 
particularly noticed the carefulness with Avhich she handled 
some bottles of physic, reading the labels on each, and 
arranging the medicine that might be required at night on 
one side of the table, and the medicine that might be 
required in the day-time on the other. When she left the 
dressing-table, and occupied herself in setting the furni- 
ture straight, and in folding up articles of clothing that 
had been thrown on one side, not the slightest movement 
of her thin, wasted hands seemed ever to be made at hazard 
or in vain. Noiselessly, modestly, observantly, she moved 
from side to side of the room, and neatness and order fol- 
lowed her steps wherever she went. When Mr. Orridge 
had resumed his place at Mrs. Frankland’s bedside, his 
mind was at ease on one point at least— it was perfectly 
evident that the new nurse could be depended on to make 
no mistakes. 

“What an odd woman she is,'’ whispered Rosamond. 

“ Odd, indeed,” returned Mr. Orridge, “ and desperately 
broken in health, though she may not confess to it. How- 
ever, she is wonderfully neat-handed and careful, and there 
can be no harm in trying her for one night — that is to say, 
unless you feel any objection.” 

. “ On the contrary,” said Rosamond, “ she rather inter- 
ests me. There is something in her face and manner— I 
can’t say what — that makes me feel curious to know more 
of her. I must get her to talk, and try if I can’t bring out 
all her peculiarities. Don’t be afraid of my exciting my- 
self, and don’t stop here in this dull room on my account. 
T would much rather you went down- stairs, and kept my 


THE DEAD SECRET 


95 


husband company over his wine. Do go and talk to him, 
and amuse him a little— he must be so dull, poor fellow, 
while I am up here; and he likes you, Mr. Orridge — he 
does, very much. Stop one moment, and just look at the 
baby again. He doesn’t take a dangerous quantity of sleep, 
does he? And, Mr. Orridge, one word more: When you 
have done your wine, you will promise to lend my husband 
the use of your eyes, and bring him up stairs to wish me 
good-night, won’t you?” 

Willingly engaging to pay attention to Mrs. Frankland’s 
request, Mr. Orridge left the bedside. 

As he opened the room door, he stopped to tell Mrs. 
Jazeph that he should be down-stairs if she wanted him, 
and that he would give her any instructions of which she 
might stand in need later in the evening, before he left the 
inn for the night. The new nurse, when he passed by her, 
was kneeling over one of Mrs. FrankJand’s open trunks, 
arranging some articles of clothing which had been rather 
carelessly folded up. Just before he spoke to her, he ob- 
served that she had a chemisette in her hand, the frill of 
which was laced through with ribbon. 

One end of this ribbon she appeared to him to be on the 
point of drawing out, when the sound of his footsteps dis- 
turbed her. The moment she became aware of his ap- 
proach she dropped the chemisette suddenly in the trunk, 
and covered it over with some handkerchiefs. Although 
this proceeding on Mrs. Jazeph’ s part rather surprised the 
doctor, he abstained from showing that he had noticed it. 
Her mistress had vouched for her character, after five 
years’ experience of it, and the bit of ribbon was intrinsic- 
ally worthless. On both accounts, it was impossible to 
suspect her of attempting to steal it ; and yet, as Mr. Orridge 
could not help feeling when he had left the room, her con- 
duct, when he surprised her over the trunk, was exactly 
the conduct of a person who is about to commit a theft. 

“Pray don’t trouble yourself about my luggage,” said 
Rosamond, remarking Mrs. Jazeph’s occupation as soon 
as the doctor liad gone. “ That is my idle maid’s business, 
and you will only make her more careless than ever 
if you do it for her. I am sure the room is beautifully 
set in order. Come here and sit down and rest yourself. 
You must be a very unselfish, kind-hearted woman to 
give yourself all this trouble to serve a stranger. The 
doctor’s message this afternoon told me that your mistress 
was a friend of my poorfdear father’s. I suppose she 
must have known him before my time. Anyway, I feel 
doubly grateful to her for taking an interest in me for my 
father’s sake. But you can have no such feeling; you 
must have come here from pure good- nature and anxiety 


96 


THE DEAD SECRET 


to help others. Don’t go away, there, to the window. 
Come and sit down by me.” 

Mrs. Jazeph had risen from the trunk, and was approach- 
ing the bedside— when she suddenly turned away in the 
direction of the fireplace, just as Mrs. Frankland began to 
speak of her father. 

“Come and sit here,” reiterated Rosamond, getting 
impatient at receiving no answer. ‘ ‘ What in the world 
are you doing there at the foot of the bed?” 

The figure of the new nurse again interposed between the 
bed and the fading evening light that glimmered through 
the window before there was any reply. 

“ The evening is closing in,” said Mrs. Jazeph, “and the 
window is not quite shut. I was thinking of making it fast, 
and of drawing down the blind — if you had no objection, 
ma’am?” 

“Oh, not yet! not yet! Shut the window, if you please, 
in case the baby should catch cold, but don’t draw down 
the blind. Let me get my peep at the view as long as there 
is any light left to see it by. That long flat stretch of 
grazing-ground out there is just beginning, at this dim 
time, to look a little like my childish recollections of a 
Cornish moor. Do you know anything about Cornwall, 
Mrs. Jazeph?” 

“ I have heard ” At those first three words of reply 

the nurse stopped. She was just then engaged in shutting 
the window, and she seemed to find some difficulty in clos- 
ing the lock. 

“ What have you heard?” asked Rosamond. 

“ I have heard that Cornwall is a wild, dreary country,” 
said Mrs. Jazeph, still busying herself with the lock of the 
window, and, by consequence, still keeping her back turned 
to Mrs. Frankland. 

“Can’t you shut the window yet?” said Rosamond. 
“ My maid always does it quite easily. Leave it till she 
comes up — I am going to ring for her directly. I want her 
to brush my hair and cool my face with a little eau-de- 
Cologne and water. ” 

“I have shut it, ma’am,” said Mrs. Jazeph, suddenly 
succeeding in closing the lock. “And if you will allow 
me, I should be very glad to make you comfortable for 
the night, and save you the trouble of ringing for the 
maid.” \ 

Thinking the new nurse the oddest woman she had ever 
met with, Mrs. Frankland accepted the offer. By the time 
Mrs. Jazeph had prepared the eau-de-Cologne and water, 
the twilight was falling softly over the landscape outside, 
and the room was beginning to grow dark. 


THE DEAD SECRET 97 

“Had you not better light a candle?” suggested Eosa- 
mond. 

“I think not, ma’am,” said Mrs. Jazeph, rather hastily. 
“ I can see quite well without,” 

She began to brush Mrs. Frankland’s hair as she spoke; 
and, at the same time, asked a question which referred to 
the few words that had passed between them on the sub 
ject of Cornwall. Pleased to find that the new nurse had 
grown familiar enough at last to speak before she was 
spoken to, Rosamond desired nothing better than to talk 
about her recollections of her native county. But, from 
some inexplicable reason, Mrs. Jazeph’s touch, light and 
tender as it was, had such a strangely disconcerting effect 
on her, that she could not succeed, for the moment, in col- 
lecting her thoughts so as to reply, except in the briefest 
manner. 

The careful hands of the nurse lingered with a stealthy 
gentleness among the locks of her hair ; the pale, wasted 
face of the new nurse approached, every now and then, 
more closely to her own than appeared at all needful. A 
vague sensation of uneasiness, which she could not trace to 
any particular part of her — which she could hardly say 
that she really felt, in a bodily sense, at all — seemed to be 
floating about her, to be hanging around and over her, like 
the air she breathed. She could not move, though she 
wanted to move in the bed ; she could not turn her head so 
as to humor the action of the brush ; she could not look 
round; she could not break the embarrassing silence which 
had been caused by her own short, discouraging answer. 
At last the sense of oppression — whether fancied or real- 
irritated her into snatching the brush out of Mrs. Jazeph’ s 
hand. The instant she had done so, she felt ashamed of 
the discourteous abruptness of the action, and confused at 
the alarm and surprise which the manner of the nurse ex- 
hibited. With the strongest sense of the absurdity of her 
own conduct, and yet without the least power of control- 
ling herself, she burst out laughing, and tossed the brush 
away to the foot of the bed. 

” Pray don’t look surprised, Mrs. Jazeph,” she said, still 
laughing without knowing why, and without feeling in the 
slightest degree amused. “I’m very rude and odd, I 
know. You have brushed my hair delightfully; but — I 
can’t tell how— it seemed, all the time, as if you were 
brushing the strangest fancies into my head. I can’t help 
laughing at them— I can’t indeed! Do you know, once or 
twice, I absolutely fancied, when your face was closest to 
mine, that you wanted to kiss me! Did you ever hear of 
anything so ridiculous? I declare I am more of a baby in 
some things, than the little darling here by my side!” 


08 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


Mrs. Jazeph made no answer. She left the bed while 
Rosamond was speaking, and came back, after an unac- 
countably long delay, with the eau-de-Cologne and water. 
As she held the basin while Mrs. Frankland bathed her 
face, she kept away at arm’s length, and came no nearer 
when it was time to offer the towel. Rosamond began to 
be afraid that she had seriously offended Mrs. Jazeph, and 
tried to soothe and propitiate her by asking questions about 
the management or the baby. There was a slight trem- 
bling in the sweet voice of the new nurse, but not the 
faintest tone of sullenness or anger, as she simply and 
quietly answered the inquiries addressed to her. By dint 
of keeping the conversation still on the subject of the 
child, Mrs. Frankland succeeded, little by little, in luring 
her back to the bedside — in tempting her to bend down ad- 
miringly over the infant — in emboldening her, at last, to 
kiss him tenderly on the cheek. One kiss was all that she 
gave.; and she turned away from the bed, after it, and 
sighed heavily. 

The sound of that sigh fell very sadly on Rosamond’s 
heart. Up to this time the baby’s little span of life had 
always been associated with smiling faces and pleasant 
words. It made her uneasy to think that any one could 
caress him and sigh after it. 

“I am sure you must be fond of children,” she said, 
hesitating a little from natural delicacy of feeling. ” But 
will you excuse me for noticing that it seenjs rather a 
mournful fondness? Pray — pray don’t answer my ques- 
tion if it gives you any pain— if you have any loss to de- 
plore ; but — but I do so want to ask if you have ever had a 
child of your own?” 

Mrs. Jazeph was standing near a chair when that ques- 
tion was put. She caught fast hold of the back of it, 
grasping it so firmly, or perhaps leaning on it so heavily, 
that the wood- work cracked. Her head dropped low on 
her bosom. She did not utter, or even attempt to utter, a 
single word. Fearing that she must have lost a child of 
her own, and dreading to distress her unnecessarily by 
venturing to ask any more questions, Rosamond said 
nothing, as she stooped over the baby to kiss him in her 
turn. Her lips rested on his cheek a little above where 
Mrs. Jazeph’s lips had rested the moment before, and they 
touched a spot of wet on his smooth, warm skin. Fearing 
that some of the water in which she had been bathing her 
face might have dropped on him, she passed her fingers 
lightly over his head, neck, and bosom, and felt no other 
spots of wet anywhere. The one drop that had fallen on 
him was the drop that wetted the cheek which the new 
nurse had kissed. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


99 


The twilight faded over the landscape, the room grew 
darker and darker; and still, though she was now sitting 
close to the table on which the candles and matches were 
placed, Mrs. Jazeph made no attempt to strike a light. 
Eosamond did not feel quite comfortable at the idea of 
lying awake in the darkness, with nobody in the room but 
a person who was as yet almost a total stranger ; and she 
resolved to have the candles lighted immediately. 

“Mrs. Jazeph,” she said, looking toward the gathering 
obscurity outside the window, “ I shall be much obliged to 
you, if you will light the candles and pull down the blind. 
I can trace no more resemblances out there, now, to a 
Cornish prospect; the view has gone altogether.” 

“Are you very fond of Cornwall, ma’am?” asked Mrs. 
Jazeph, rising, in rather a dilatory manner, to light the 
candles. 

“Indeed I am,” said Eosamond. “I was born there; 
and my husband and I were on our way to Cornwall when 
we were obliged to stop, on my account, at this place. You 
are a long time getting the candles lit. Can’t you find the 
match-box?” 

Mrs. Jazeph, with an awkwardness which was rather sur- 
prising in a person who had shown so much neat-handed- 
ness in setting the room to rights, broke the first match in 
attempting to light it, and let the second go out the instant 
after the fiame was kindled. At the third attempt she was 
more successful ; but she only lit one candle, and that one 
she carried away from the table which Mrs. Frankland 
could see, to the dressing-table, which was hidden from her 
by tj^ curtains at the foot of the bed. 

“ Why do you move the candle?” asked Eosamond. 

“ I thought it was best for your eyes, ma’am, not to have 
the light too near them,” replied Mrs. Jazeph; and then 
added hastily, as if she was unwilling to give Mrs. Frank- 
land time to make any objections— “And so you were going 
to Cornwall, ma’am, when you stopped at this place? To 
travel about there a little, I suppose?” After saying these 
words, she took up the second candle, and passed out of 
sight as she carried it to the dressing-table. 

Eosamond thought that the nurse, in spite of her gentle 
looks and manners, was a remarkably obstinate woman. 
But she was too good-natured to care about asserting her 
right to have the candles placed where she pleased ; and 
when she answered Mrs. Jazeph’ s question, she still spoke 
to her as cheerfully and familiarly as ever. 

“ Oh, dear, no! Not to travel about,” she said, “but to 
go straight to the old country house where I was born. It 
belongs to my husband now, Mrs. Jazeph. I have not been 
near it since I was a little girl of five years of age. Su#h a 


100 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


ruinous, rambling old place ! You, who talk of the dreari- 
ness and wildness of Cornwall, would be quite horrified at 
the very idea of living in Porthgenna Tower. ’ ’ 

The faintly rustling sound of Mrs. Jazeph’s silk dress, as 
she moved about the dressing-table, had been audible all 
the while Kosamond was speaking. It ceased instantane- 
ously when she said the words “ Porthgenna Tower;” and 
for one moment there was a dead silence in the room. 

“You, who have been living all your life, I suppose, in 
nicely repaired houses, cannot imagine what a place it is 
that we are going to, when I am well enough to travel 
again,” pursued Kosamond. “What do you think, Mrs. 
Jazeph, of a house with one whole side of it that has never 
been inhabited for sixty or seventy years past? You may 
get some notion of the size of Porthgenna Tower from that. 
There is a west side that we are to live in when we get 
there, and a north side, where the empty old rooms are, 
which I hope we shall be able to repair. Only think of the 
hosts of odd, old-fashioned things that we may find in those 
uninhabited rooms ! I mean to put on the cook’s apron and 
the gardener’s gloves, and rummage all over them from top 
to bottom. How I shall astonish the housekeeper, when I 
get to Porthgenna, and ask her for the keys of the ghostly 
north rooms!” 

A low cry, and a sound as if something had struck 
against the dressing-table, followed Mrs. Frankland’s last 
words. She started in the bed, and asked eagerly what 
was the matter. 

“Nothing,” answered Mrs. Jazeph, speaking so con- 
strainedly that her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘ * NotJ|ing, 
ma’am — nothing, I assure you. I struck my side, by acci- 
dent, against the table — pray don’t be alarmed! — it’s not 
worth noticing. ’ ’ 

“ But you speak as if you were in pain,” said Kosamond. 

“No, no — not in pain. Not hurt — not hurt, indeed.” 

While Mrs. Jazeph was declaring that she was not hurt, 
the door of the room was opened, and the doctor entered, 
leading in Mr. Frankland. 

“We come early, Mrs. Frankland, but we are going to 
give you plenty of time to compose yourself for the night,” 
said Mr. Orridge. He paused, and noticed that Kosamond’ s 
color was heightened. ‘ ‘ I am afraid you have been talk- 
ing and exciting yourself a little too much,” he went on. 
“ If you will excuse me for venturing on the suggestion, 
Mr. Frankland, I think the sooner good-night is said the 
better. Where is the nurse?” 

Mrs. Jazeph sat down with her back to the lighted can- 
dle when she heard herself asked for. Just before that, she 
had been looking at Mr. Frankland with an eager, undis- 


THE DEAD SECRET 


101 


guised curiosity, which, if any one had noticed it, must have 
appeared surprisingly out of character with her usual mod- 
esty and refinement of manner. 

“I am afraid the nurse has accidentally hurt her side 
more than she is willing to confess,” said Rosamond to the 
doctor, pointing with one hand to the place in which Mrs. 
Jazeph was sitting, and raising the other to her husband’s 
neck as he stooped over her pillow. 

Mr. Orridge, on inquiring what had happened, could not 
prevail on the new nurse to acknowledge that the accident 
was of the slightest consequence. He suspected, neverthe- 
less, that she was suffering, or, at least, that something had 
happened to discompose her; for he found the greatest dif- 
ficulty in fixing her attention, while he gave her a few need- 
ful directions in case her services were required during the 
night. All the time he was speaking, her eyes wandered 
away from him to the part of the room where Mr. and Mrs. 
Frankland were talking together. Mrs. Jazeph looked like 
the last person in the world who would be guilty of an act 
of impertinent curiosity ; and yet she openly betrayed all 
the characteristics of an inquisitive woman while Mr. 
Frankland was standing by his wife’s pillow. The doctor 
was obliged to assume his most peremptory manner before 
he could get her to attend to him at all. 

“ And now, Mrs. Frankland,” said Mr. Orridge, turning 
away from the nurse, “ as I have given Mrs. Jazeph all the 
directions she wants, I shall set the example of leaving you 
in quiet by saying good-night.” 

Understanding the hint conveyed in these words, Mr. 
Frankland attempted to say good-night too, but his wife 
kept tight hold of both his hands, and declared that it was 
unreasonable to expect her to let him go for another half 
hour at least. Mr. Orridge shook his head, and began to 
expatiate on the evils of overexcitement, and the blessings of 
composure and sleep. His remonstrances, however, would 
have produced very little effect, even if Rosamond had 
allowed him to continue them, but for the interposition of 
the baby, who happened to wake up at that moment, and 
who proved himself a powerful auxiliary on the doctor’s 
side, by absorbing all his mother’s attention immediately. 
Seizing his opportunity at the right moment, Mr. Orridge 
quietly led Mr. Frankland out of the room, just as Rosa- 
mond was taking the child up in her arms. He stopped 
before closing the door to whisper one last word to Mrs. 
Jazeph. 

“If Mrs. Frankland wants to talk, you must not encour- 
age her,” he said. “As soon as she has quieted the baby, 
she ought to go to sleep. There is a chair-bedstead in that 
corner, which you can open for yourself when you want to 


102 


THE DEAD SECRET 


lie dowji. Keep the candle where it is now, behind the 
curtain. The less light Mrs. Frankland sees, the sooner 
she will compose herself to sleep.” 

Mrs. Jazeph made no answer; she only looked at the doc- 
tor and courtesied. That strangely scared expression in 
her eyes, which he had noticed on first seeing her, was 
more painfully apparent than ever when he left her alone 
for the night with the mother and child. “ She will never 
do,” thought Mr. Orridge, as he led Mr. Frankland down 
the inn stairs. “We shall have to send to London for a 
nurse, after all.” 

Feeling a little irritated by the summary manner in 
which her husband had been taken away from her, Rosa- 
mond fretfully rejected the offers of assistance which were 
made to her by Mrs. Jazeph as soon as the doctor had left 
the room. The nurse said nothing when her services were 
declined; and yet, judging by her conduct, she seemed 
anxious to speak. Twice she advanced toward the bedside 
— opened her lips— stopped— and retired confusedly, be- 
fore she settled herself finally in her former place by the 
dressing-table. Here she remained, silent and out of sight, 
until the child had been quieted, and had fallen asleep in 
his mother’s arms, with one little pink, half -closed hand 
resting on her bosom. Rosamond could not resist raising 
the hand to her lips, though she risked waking him again 
by doing so. As she kissed it, the sound of the kiss was 
followed by a faint, suppressed sob, proceeding from the 
other side of the curtains at the lower end of the bed. 

“ What is that?” she exclaimed. 

“Nothing, ma’am,” said Mrs. Jazeph, in the same con- 
strained, whispering tones in which she had answered Mrs. 
Frankland’s former question. “ I think I was just falling 
asleep in the arm-chair here ; and I ought to have told you 
perhaps that, having had my troubles, and being afflicted 
with a heart complaint, I have a habit of sighing in my 
sleep. It means nothing, ma’am, and I hope you will be 
good enough to excuse it. ’ ’ 

Rosamond’s generous instincts were aroused in a moment. 

“Excuse it!” she said. “I hope I may do better than 
that, Mrs. Jazeph, and be the means of relieving it. When 
Mr. Orridge comes to-morrow you shall consult him, and 
I will take care that you want for nothing that he may 
order. No! no! Don’t thank me until I have been the 
means of making you well — and keep where you are, if the 
arm-chair is comfortable. The baby is asleep again; and 1 
should like to have half an hour’s quiet before I change to 
the night side of the bed. Stop where you are for the 
present: I will call as soon as I want you.” 

So far from exercising a soothing effect on Mrs Jazeph, 


THlE Dt^Ab SECRET. 


io^ 


these kindly meant words produced precisely the opposite 
result of making her restless. She began to walk about 
the room, and confusedly attempted to account for the 
change in her conduct by saying that she wished to satisfy 
herself that all her arrangements were properly made for 
the night. In a few minutes more she began, in defiance 
of the doctor’s prohibition, to tempt Mrs. Frankland into 
talking again, by asking questions about Porthgenna 
Tower, and by referring to the chances for and against its 
being chosen as a permanent residence by the young mar- 
ried couple. 

“ Perhaps, ma’am,” she said, speaking on a sudden, 
with an eagerness in her voice which was curiously at vari- 
ance with the apparent indifference of her manner — “per- 
haps when you see Porthgenna Tower you may not like it 
so well as you think you will now. Who can tell that you 
may not get tired and leave the place again after a few 
days — especially if you go into the empty rooms? I should 
have thought — if you will excuse my saying so, ma’am, I 
should have thought that a lady like you would have liked 
to get as far away as possible from dirt, and dust, and dis- 
agreeable smells.” 

“ I can face worse inconveniences than those, where my 
curiosity is concerned, ’ ’ said Eosamond. ‘ ‘ And I am more 
curious to see the uninhabited rooms at Porthgenna than to 
see the Seven Wonders of the World. Even if we don’t 
settle altogether at the old house, I feel certain that wo 
shall stay there for some time. ’ ’ 

At that answer Mrs. Jazeph abruptly turned away, and 
asked no more questions. She retired to a corner of the 
room near the door, where the chair -bedstead stood which 
the doctor had pointed out to her — occupied herself for a 
few minutes in making it ready for the night— then left it 
as suddenly as she had approached it, and began to walk up 
and down once more. This unaccountable restlessness, 
which had already surprised Rosamond, now made her feel 
rather uneasy— especially when she once or twice overheard 
Mrs. Jazeph talking to" herself. Judging by words and 
fragments of sentences that were audible now and then, her 
mind was still running, with the most inexplicable persist- 
ency, on the subject of Porthgenna Tower. As the min- 
utes wore on, and she continued to walk up and down, and 
still went on talking, Rosamond’s uneasiness began to 
strengthen into something like alarm. She resolved to 
awaken Mrs. Jazeph, in the least offensive manner, to a 
sense of the strangeness of her own conduct, by noticing 
that she was talking, but by not appearing to understand 
that she was talking to herself. 

“What did you say?” asked Rosamond, putting the 


104 


THE dead SECEET. 


question at a moment when the nurse’s voice was most dis- 
tinctly betraying her in the act of thinking aloud. 

Mrs. Jazeph stopped, and raised her head vacantly, as if 
she had been awakened out of a heavy sleep. 

“I thought you were saying something more about our 
old house,” continued Rosamond. “I thought I heard 
you say that I ought not to go to Porthgenna, or that you 
would not go there in my place, or something of that 
sort.” 

Mrs. Jazeph blushed like a young girl. “I think you 
must have been mistaken, ma’am,” she said, and stooped 
over the chair-bedstead again. 

Watching her anxiously, Rosamond saw that, while she 
was affecting to arrange the bedstead, she was doing noth- 
ing whatever to prepare it for being slept in. What did 
that mean? What did her whole conduct mean for the last 
half hour? As Mrs. Frankland asked herself those ques- 
tions, the thrill of a terrible suspicion turned her cold to 
the very roots of her hair. It had never occurred to her 
before, but it suddenly struck her now, with the force of 
positive conviction, that the new nurse was not in her right 
senses. 

All that was unaccountable in her behavior — her odd 
disappearances behind the curtains at the foot of the bed ; 
her lingering, stealthy, over-familiar way of using the hair- 
brush; her silence at one time, her talkativeness at an- 
other; her restlessness, her whispering to herself, her af- 
fectation of being deeply engaged in doing something which 
she was not doing at all— every one of her strange actions 
(otherwise incomprehensible) became intelligible in a mo- 
ment on that one dreadful supposition that she was mad. 

Terrified as she was, Rosamond kept her presence of 
mind. One of her arms stole instinctively round the child ; 
and she had half raised the other to catch at the bell-rope 
hanging above her pillow, when she saw Mrs. Jazeph turn 
and look at her. 

A woman possessed only of ordinary nerve would, prob- 
ably, at that instant have pulled at the bell-rope in the un- 
reasoning desperation of sheer fright. Rosamond had 
courage enough to calculate consequences, and to remem- 
ber that Mrs. Jazeph would have time to lock the door, be- 
fore assistance could arrive, if she betrayed her suspicions 
by ringing without first assigning some plausible reason 
for doing so. She slowly closed her eyes as the nurse 
looked at her, partly to convey the notion that she was 
composing herself to sleep— partly to gain time to think 
of some safe excuse for summoning her maid. The flurry 
of her spirits, however, interfered with the exercise of her 
ingenuity. Minute after minute dragged on heavily, and 


THE DEAD SECRET 105 

still she could think of no assignable reason for ringing the 
bell. 

She was doubting whether it would not be safest to send 
Mrs. Jazeph out of the room, on some message to her hus- 
band, to lock the door the moment she was alone, and 
then to ring — she was just doubting whether she would 
boldly adopt this course of proceeding or not, when she 
heard the rustle of the nurse’s silk dress approaching the 
bedside. 

Her first impulse was to snatch at the bell-rope ; but fear 
had paralyzed her hand ; she could not raise it from the 
pillow. 

The rustling of the silk dress ceased. She half unclosed 
her eyes, and saw that the nurse was stopping midway 
between the part of the room from which she had ad- 
vanced and the bedside. There was nothing wild or angry 
in her look. The agitation which her face expressed was 
the agitation of perplexity and alarm. * She stood rapidly 
clasping and unclasping her hands, the image of bewilder- 
ment and distress— stood so for nearly a minute— then 
came forward a few steps more, and said inquiringly, in a 
whisper : 

‘‘Not asleep? not quite asleep, yet?” 

Bosamond tried to speak in answer, but the quick beat- 
ing of her heart seemed to rise up to her very lips, and to 
stifle the words on them. 

The nurse came on, still with the same perplexity and 
distress in her face, to within a foot of the bedside — knelt 
down by the pillow, and looked earnestly at Bosamond — 
shuddered a little, and glanced all round her, as if to make 
sure that the room was empty— bent forward— hesitated— 
bent nearer, and whispered into her ear these words: 

“When you go to Porthgenna, Jceep out of the Myrtle 
RoomP' 

The hot breath of the woman, as she spoke, beat on Kos- 
amond’s cheek, and seemed to fly in one fever-throb 
through every vein of her body. The nervous shock of 
that unutterable sensation burst the bonds of the terror 
that had hitherto held her motionless and speechless. She 
started up in bed with a scream, caught hold of the bell • 
rope, and pulled it violently. 

“Oh, hush! hush!” cried Mrs. Jazeph, sinking back on 
her knees, and beating her hands together despairingly 
with the helpless gesticulation of a child. 

Bosamond rang again and again. Hurrying footsteps 
and eager voices were heard outside on the stairs. It was 
not ten o'clock yet— nobody had retired for the night— and 
the violent ringing had already alarmed the house. 

The nurse rose to her feet, staggered back from the bed- 


106 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


side, and supported herself against the wall of the room, 
as the footsteps and the voices reached the door. She said 
not another word. The hands that she had been beating 
together so violently but an instant before hung down 
nerveless at her side. The blank of a great agony spread 
over all her face, and stilled it awfully. 

The first person who entered the room was Mrs. Frank- 
land’s maid, and the landlady followed her. 

“Fetch Mr. Frankland,” said Rosamond, faintly, ad- 
dressing the landlady. ‘ ‘ I want to speak to him directly. 
You,” she continued, beckoning to the maid, “sit by me 
here till your master comes. I have been dreadfully 
frightened. Don’t ask me questions; but stop here.” 

The maid stared at her mistress in amazement; then 
looked round with a disparaging frown at the nurse. 
When the landlady left the room to fetch Mr. Frankland, 
she had moved a little away from the wall, so as to com- 
mand a full view of the bed. Her eyes were fixed with a 
look of breathless suspense, of devouring anxiety, on 
Rosamond’s face. From all her other features the expres- 
sion seemed to be gone. She said nothing, she noticed 
nothing. She did not start, she did not move aside an inch, 
when the landlady returned, and led Mr. Frankland to his 
wife. 

“Lenny! don’t let the new nurse stop here to-night — 
pray, pray don’t!” whispered Rosamond, eagerly catching 
her husband by the arm. 

Warned by the trembling of her hand, Mr. Frankland 
laid his fingers lightly on her temples and on her heart. 

“ Good heavens, Rosamond! what has happened? I left 
you quiet and comfortable, and now ” 

“I’ve been frightened, dear — dreadfully frightened, by 
the new nurse. Don’t be hard on her, poor creature: she 
is not in her right senses— I am certain she is not. Only 
get her away quietly— only send her back at once to where 
she came from. I shall die of the fright, if she stops here. 
She has been behaving so strangely — she has spoken such 
words to me— Lenny! Lenny! don’t let go of my hand. 
She came stealing up to me so horribly, just where you are 
now ; she knelt down at my ear, and whispered— oh, such 
words!” 

“Hush, hush, love!” said Mr Frankland, getting seri- 
ously alarmed by the violence of Rosamond’s agitation. 
“Never mind repeating the words now; wait till you are 
calmer— I beg and entreat of you, wait till you are calmer. 
I will do everything you wish, if you will only lie down and 
be quiet, and try to compose yourself before you say another 
word. It is quite enough for me to know that this woman 
has frightened you, and that you wish her to be sent away 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


107 


with as little harshness as possible. We will put off all 
further explanations till to-morrow morning. I deeply re- 
gret now that I did not persist in carrying out my own 
idea of sending for a proper nurse from London. Where 
is the landlady?” 

The landlady placed herself by Mr. Frankland’s side. 

“ Is it late?” asked Leonard. 

“ Oh, no, sir; not ten o’clock yet.” 

“ Order a fly to be brought to the door, then, as soon as 
possible, if you please. Where is the nurse?” 

“Standing behind you, sir,4iear the wall,” said the maid. 

As Mr. Frankland turned in that direction, Eosamond 
whispered to him: “ Don’t be hard on her, Lenny.” 

The maid, looking with contemptuous curiosity at Mrs. 
Jazeph, saw the whole expression of her countenance alter 
as those words were spoken. The tears rose thick in her 
eyes, and flowed down her cheeks. The deathly spell of 
stillness that had lain on her face was broken in an instant. 
She drew back again, close to the wall, and leaned against 
it as before. “Don’t be hard on her!” the maid heard 
her repeat to herself, in a low, sobbing voice. “ Don’t be 
hard on her ! Oh, my God ! she said that kindly— she said 
that kindly, at least.” 

“I have no desire to speak to you, or to use you un- 
kindly,” said Mr. Frankland, imperfectly hearing what 
she said. “I know nothing of what has happened, and I 
make no accusations. I And Mrs. Frankland violently agi 
tated and frightened; I hear her connect that agitation 
with you— not angrily, but compassionately — and, instead 
of speaking harshly, I prefer leaving it to your own sense 
of what is right, to decide whether your attendance here 
ought not to cease at once. I have provided the proper 
means for your conveyance from this place ; and I would 
suggest that you should make our apologies to your mis • 
tress, and say nothing more than that circumstances have 
happened which oblige us to dispense with your services. ’ ’ 

“ You have been considerate toward me, sir,” said Mrs. 
Jazeph, speaking quietly, and with a certain gentle dignity 
in her manner, “ and I will not prove myself unworthy of 
your forbearance by saying what I might say in my own 
defense.” She advanced into the middle of the room, and 
stopped where she could see Eosamond plainly. Twice she 
attempted to speak, and twice her voice failed her. At the 
third effort she succeeded in controlling herself. 

“Before I go, ma’am,” she said, “I hope you will be- 
lieve that I have no bitter feeling against you for sending 
me away. I am not angry —pray remember always that 
I was not angry, and that I never complained.” 

There was such a forlornness in her face, such a sweet. 


108 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


sorrowful resignation in every tone of her voice during the 
utterance of these few words, that Eosamond’s heart smote 
her. 

“Why did you frighten me?” she asked, half relenting. 

“Frighten you? How could I frighten you? Gh, me! 
of all the people in the world, how could I frighten you?” 

Mournfully saying those words, the nurse went to the 
chair on which she had placed her bonnet and shawl, and 
put them on. The landlady and the maid, watching her 
with curious eyes, detected that she was again weeping bit- 
terly, and noticed with astonishment, at the same time, 
how neatly she put on her bonnet and shawl. The wasted 
hands were moving mechanically, and were trembling 
while they moved — and yet, slight thing though it was, the 
inexorable instinct of propriety guided their most trifling 
actions still. 

On her way to the door, she stopped again at passing the 
bedside, looked through her tears at Eosamond and the 
child, struggled a little with herself, and then spoke her 
farewell words: 

“ God bless you, and keep you and your child happy and 
prosperous,” she said. “I am not angry at being sent 
away. If you ever think of me again, after to-night, please 
to remember that I was not angry, and that I never com- 
plained.” 

She stood for a moment longer, still weeping, and still 
looking through her tears at the mother and child — then 
turned away and walked to the door. Something in the 
last tones of her voice caused a silence in the room. Of the 
four persons in it not one could utter a word, as the nurse 
closed the door gently, and went out from them alone. 


CHAPTEE V. 

A COUNCIL OF THREE. 

On the morning after the departure of Mrs. Jazeph, the 
news that she had been sent away from the Tiger’s Head 
by Mr. Frankland’s directions reached the doctor’s resi- 
dence from the inn just as he was sitting down to break- 
fast. Finding that the report of the nurse’s dismissal was 
not accompanied by any satisfactory explanation of the 
cause of it, Mr. Orridge refused to believe that her attend- 
ance on Mrs. Frankland had really ceased. However, al- 
though he declined to credit the news, he was so far dis- 
turbed by it that he finished his breakfast in a hurry, and 
w^ent to pay his morning visit at the Tiger’s Head nearly 
two hours before the time at which he usually attended on 
his patient. 

On his way to the inn he was met and stopped by the 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


109 


one waiter attached to the establishment. ‘‘I was just 
bringing you a message from Mr. Frankland, sir,” said 
the man. “ He wants to see you as soon as possible.” 

‘'Is it true that Mrs. Frankland’s nurse was sent away 
last night by Mr. Frankland ’s order?” asked Mr. Orridge. 

‘‘ Quite true, sir,” answered the waiter. 

The doctor colored, and looked seriously discomposed. 
One of the most precious things we have about us~espe- 
cially if we happen to belong to the medical profession— is 
our dignity. It struck Mr. Orridge that he ought to have 
been consulted before a nurse of his recommending was 
dismissed from her situation at a moment’s notice. Was 
Mr. Frankland presuming upon his position as a gentle- 
man of fortune? The power of wealth may do much with 
impunity, but it is not privileged to offer any practical con- 
tradictions to a man’s good opinion of himself. Never had 
the doctor thought more disrespectfully of rank and riches ; 
never had he been conscious of reflecting on republican 
principles with such absolute impartiality, as when he now 
followed the waiter in sullen silence to Mr. Frankland’s 
room. 

“ Who is that?” asked Leonard, when he heard the door 
open, 

“Mr. Orridge, sir,” said the waiter. 

“Good -morning,” said Mr. Orridge, with self- asserting 
abruptness and familiarity. 

Mr. Frankland was sitting in an arm-chair, with his legs 
crossed. Mr. Orridge carefully selected another arm-chair, 
and crossed his legs on the model of Mr. Frankland’s the 
moment he sat down. Mr. Frankland’s hands were in the 
pockets of his dressing- gown. Mr. Orrid ge had no pockets, 
except in his coat-tails, which he could not conveniently 
get at ; but he put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his 
waistcoat, and asserted himself against the easy insolence 
of wealth in that way. It made no difference to him — so 
curiously narrow is the range of a man’s perceptions when 
he is insisting on his own importance— that Mr. Frankland 
was blind, and consequently incapable of being impressed 
by the independence of his bearing. Mr. Orridge’s own 
dignity was vindicated in Mr. Orridge’s own presence, and 
that was enough. 

“ I am glad you have come so early, doctor,” said Mr. 
Frankland. “ A very unpleasant thing happened here last 
night. I was obliged to send the new nurse away at a mo- 
meat’s notice.” 

‘ Were you, indeed?” said Mr. Orridge, defensively 
matching Mr. Frankland’s composure-by an assumption of 
the completest indifference. “Aha! were you, indeed?” 

“ If there had been time to send and consult you, of 


110 


THE HEAD SECRET. 


course I should have been only too glad to have done so^^’ 
continued Leonard; “but it was impossible to hesitate. 
We were all alarmed by a loud ringing of my wife’s bell; I 
was taken up to her room, and found her in a condition of 
the most violent agitation and alarm. She told me she 
had been dreadfully frightened by the new nurse: declared 
her conviction that the woman was not in her rignt senses, 
and entreated that I would get her out of the house with 
as little delay and as little harshness as possible. Under 
these circumstances, what could I do? I may seem to 
have been wanting in consideration toward you, in pro- 
ceeding on my own sole responsibility ; but Mrs. Frank- 
land was in such a state of excitement that I could not tell 
what might be the consequence of opposing her, or of 
venturing on any delays ; and after the difficulty had been 
got over, she would not hear of your being disturbed by a 
summons to the inn. I am sure you will understand this 
explanation, doctor, in the spirit in which I offer it.” 

Mr. Orridge began to look a little confused. His solid 
substructure of independence was softening and sinking 
from under him. He suddenly found himself thinking of 
the cultivated manners of the wealthy classes ; his thumbs 
slipped mechanically out of the arm-holes of his waistcoat; 
and, before he well knew what he was about, he was stam- 
mering his way through all the choicest intricacies of a 
complimentary and respectful reply. 

“You will naturally be anxious to know what the new 
nurse said or did to frighten my wife so,” pursued Mr. 
Frankland. “lean tell you nothing in 'detail; for Mrs. 
Frankland was in such a state of nervous dread last night 
that I was really afraid of asking for any; explanations ; and 
I have purposely waited to make inquiries this morning 
until you could come here and accompany me up-stairs. 
You kindly took so much trouble to secure this unlucky 
woman’s attendance, that you have a right to hear all that 
can be alleged against her, now she has been sent away. 
Considering all things, Mrs. Frankland is not so ill this 
morning as I was afraid she would be. She expects to see 
3^ou with me ; and, if you will kindly give me y^our arm, we 
will go up to her immediately. ’ ’ 

On entering Mrs.,Frankland’s room, the doctor saw at a 
glance that she had been altered for the worse by the events 
of the past evening. He remarked that the smile with 
which she greeted her husband was the faintest and sad- 
dest he had seen on her face. Her eyes looked dim and 
weary, her skin was dry, her pulse was irregular. It was 
plain that she had passed a wakeful night, and that her 
mind was not at ease. She dismissed the inquiries of her 
medical attendant as briefly as nossible, and led the con- 


THE DEAD SECRET. Ill 

Versation immediately, of her own accord, to the subject 
of Mrs. Jazeph. 

“I suppose you have heard what has happened,” she 
said, addressing Mr. Orridge. ” I can’t tell you how 
grieved I am about it. My conduct must look in your 
eyes, as well as in the eyes of the poor unfortunate nurse, 
the conduct of a capricious, unfeeling woman. I am ready 
to cry with sorrow and vexation when I remember how 
thoughtless I was, and how little courage I showed. Oh, 
Lenny, it is dreadful to hurt the feelings of anybody, but 
to have pained that unhappy, helpless woman as we pained 
lier, to have made her cry so bitterly, to have caused her 
such humiliation and wretchedness ” 

“My dear Rosamond,” interposed Mr. Frankland, “you 
are lamenting effects, and forgetting causes altogether. 
Remember what a state of terror I found you in — there 
must have been some reason for that. Remember, too, 
how strong your conviction was that the nurse was out of 
her senses. Surely you have not altered your opinion on 
that point already?” 

“ It is that very opinion, love, that has been perplexing 
and worrying me all night. I can’t alter it ; I feel more 
certain than ever that there must be something wrong 
with the poor creature’s intellect — and yet, when 1 remem- 
ber how good-naturedly she came here to help me, and how 
anxious she seemed to make herself useful, I can’t help 
feeling ashamed of my suspicions ; I can’t help reproach- 
ing myself for having been the cause of her dismissal last 
night. Mr. Orridge, did you notice anything in Mrs. 
Jnzeph’s face or manner which might lead y^ou to doubt 
whether her intellects were quite as sound as they ought 
to be?” 

“Certainly not, Mrs. Frankland, or I should never have 
brought her here. I should not have been astonished to 
hear that she was suddenly taken ill, or that she had been 
seized with a fit, or that some slight accident, which 
would have frightened nobody else, had seriously fright- 
ened her ; but to be told that there is anything approaching 
to derangement in her faculties, does, I own, fairly sur- 
prise me.” 

“Can I have been mistaken?” exclaimed Rosamond, 
looking confusedly and self-distrustfully from Mr. Orridge 
to her husband. “Lenny! Lenny! If I have been mis- 
taken, I shall never forgive myself.” 

“ Suppose you tell us, my dear, what led you to suspect 
that she was mad?” suggested Mr. Frankland. 

Rosamond hesitated. “Things that are great in one’s 
own mind,” she said, “seem to get so little when they are 
put into words. I almost despair of making you under- 


ii2 THE DEAD SECRET. 

stand what good reason I had to be frightened— and then, 
I am afraid, in trying to do justice to myself, that I may 
not do justice to the nurse.” 

” Tell your own story, my love, in your own way, and 
you will be sure to tell it properly, ’ ’ said Mr. Frankland. 

“And pray remember,” added Mr. Orridge, “that I 
attach no real importance to my opinion of Mrs. Jazeph. 
I have not had time enough to form it. Your opportuni- 
ties of observing her have been far more numerous than 
mine.” 

Thus encouraged, Eosamond plainly and simply related 
all that had happened in her room on the previous evening, 
up to the time when she had closed her eyes and had heard 
the nurse approaching her bedside. Before repeating the 
extraordinary words that Mrs. Jazeph had whispered in 
her ear, she made a pause, and looked earnestly in her 
husband’s face. 

“Why do you stop?” asked Mr. Frankland. 

“ I feel nervous and flurried still, Lenny, when I think 
of the words the nurse said to me, just before 1 rang the 
bell.” 

“What did she say? Was it something you would 
rather not repeat?” 

“ No I no! I am most anxious to repeat it, and to hear 
what you think it means. As I have just told you, Lenny, 
we had been talking of Porthgenna, and of my project of 
exploring the north rooms as soon as I got there; and she 
had been asking many questions about the old house ; ap- 
pearing, I must say, to be unaccountably interested in it, 
considering she was a stranger.” 

“Yes?” 

“Well, when she came to the bedside, she knelt down 
close at my ear, and whispered all on a sudden — ‘ When 
you go to Porthgenna, keep out of the Myrtle Eooml’ ” 

Mr. Frankland started. ‘ ‘ Is there such a room at Porth- 
genna?” he asked, eagerly. 

“ I never heard of it,” said Eosamond. - 

“Are you sure of that?” inquired Mr. Orridge. Up to 
this moment the doctor had privately suspected that Mrs. 
Frankland must have fallen asleep soon after he left her 
the evening before ; and that the narrative which she was 
now relating, with the sincerest conviction of its reality, 
was actually derived from nothing but a series of vivid im- 
pressions produced by a dream. 

“ I am certain I never heard of such a room,” said Eosa- 
mond. “I left Porthgenna at five years old; and I had 
never heard of it then. My father often talked of the 
house in after- years ; but I am certain that he never spoke 
of any of the rooms by any particular names ; and I can say 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


113 


the same of your father, Lenny, whenever I was in his com- 
pany after he had bought the place. Besides, don’t you. 
remember, when tlie builder we sent down to survey the 
house wrote you that letter, he complained that there wore 
no names of the rooms on the different keys to guide him 
in opening the doors, and that he could get no information 
from anybody at Porthgenna on the subject? How could 
I ever have heard of the Myrtle Koom? Who was there to 
tell me?” 

Mr. Orridge began to look perplexed ; it seemed by no 
means so certain that Mrs. Frankland had been dreaming, 
after all. 

” I have thought of nothing else,” said Rosamond to her 
husband, in low, whispering tones. “I can’t get those 
mysterious words off my mind. Feel my heart, Lenny — it 
is beating quicker than usual onl)^ with saying them over 
to you. They are such very strange, startling words. 
What do you think they mean?” 

“ Who is the woman who spoke them? — that is the most 
important question,” said Mr. Frankland. 

“But why did she say the words to mef That is what I 
did want to know— that is what I must know, if I am ever 
to feel easy in my mind again!” 

“Gently, Mrs. Frankland, gently!” said Mr. Orridge. 
“For your child’s sake, as well as for your own, pray try 
to be calm, and to look at this very mysterious event as 
composedly as you can. If any exertions of mine can 
throw light upon this strange woman and her still stranger 
conduct. I will not spare them. I am going to-day to her 
mistress^ house to see one of the children; and, depend 
upon it, I will manage in some way to make Mrs. Jazeph 
explain herself. Her mistress shall hear every word that 
you have told me; and I can assure you she is just the sort 
of downright, resolute woman who will insist on having 
the whole mystery instantly cleared up. ’ ’ 

Rosamond’s weary eyes brightened at the doctor’s pro- 
posal. “Oh, go at once, Mr. Orridge!” she exclaimed — 
“go at once!” 

“ I have a great deal of medical work to do in the town 
first,” said the doctor, smiling at Mrs. Frankland’s impa- 
tience. 

“Begin it, then, without losing another instant,” said 
Rosamond. “The baby is quite well, and I am quite well 
—we need not detain you a moment. And, Mr. Orridge, 
pray be as gentle and considerate as possible with the' poor 
woman ; and tell her that I never should have thought of 
sending her away if I had not been too frightened to know 
what I was about. And say how sorry I am this morning, 
and say—” 


114 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


“My dear, if Mrs. Jazeph is really not in her right 
senses, what would be the use of overwhelming her with 
all these excuses?” interposed Mr. Frankland. “It will 
be more to the purpose if Mr. Orridge will kindly explain 
and apologize for us to her mistress.” 

“ Go ! Don’t stop to talk — pray go at once !” cried Rosa- 
mond, as the doctor attempted to reply to Mr. Frankland. 

“Don’t be afraid; no time shall be lost,” said Mr. Or- 
ridge, opening the door. “But remember, Mrs. Frank- 
land, I shall expect you to reward your emb^sador, when 
he returns from his mission, by showing him that you are 
a little more quiet and composed than I find you this morn- 
ing. ” With that parting hint the doctor took his leave. 

“ ‘ When you go to Porthgenna, keep out of the Myrtle 
Room,’” repeated Mr. Frankland, thoughtfully. “Those 
are very strange words, Rosamond. Who can this woman 
really be? She is a perfect stranger to both of us; we are 
brought into contact with her by the merest accident ; and 
we find that she knows something about our own house of 
which we were both perfectly ignorant until she chose to 
speak!” 

“But the warning, Lenny — the warning, so pointedly 
and mysteriously addressed to me? Oh, if I could only go 
to sleep at once, and not wake again till the doctor comes 
back!” 

“My love, try not to count too certainly on our being 
enlightened, even then. The woman may refuse to explain 
herself to anybody.” 

“Don’t even hint at such a disappointment as that, 
Lenny — or I shall be w^anting to get up, and go and ques- 
tion her myself!” 

“Even if you could get up and question her, Rosa- 
mond, you might find it impossible to make her answer. 
She may be afraid of certain consequences which we can- 
not foresee ; and, in that case, I can only repeat that it is 
more than probable she will explain nothing— or, perhaps, 
still more likely that she will coolly deny her own words 
altogether.” 

“Then, Lenny, we will put them to the proof for our- 
selves.” 

“ And how can we do that?” 

“ By continuing our journey to Porthgenna the moment 
I am allowed to travel, and by leaving no stone unturned 
when we get there until we have discovered whether there 
is or is not any room in the old house that ever was known, 
at any time of its existence, by the name of th5 Myrtle 
Room.” 

“And suppose it should turn out that there is such a 


THE DEAD SECRET. 115 

room?” asked Mr. Frankland, beginning to feel the influ- 
ence of his wife’s enthusiasm. 

“If it does turn out so,” said Kosamond, her voice ris- 
ing, and her face lighting up with its accustomed vivacity, 
“ how can >'^')u doubt what will happen next? Am I not a 
woman? And have I not been forbidden to enter the Myr- 
tle Eoom ? Lenny ! Lenny ! Do you know so little of my 
half of humanity as to doubt what I should do the moment 
the room was discovered? My darling, as a matter of 
course, I should walk into it immediately.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

ANOTHER SURPRISE. 

With all the haste he could make, it was one o’clock in 
the afternoon before Mr. Orridge’s professional avocations 
allowed him to set forth in his gig for Mrs. Norbury’s 
house. He drove there with such good will that he ac- 
complished the half-hour’s journey in twenty minutes. 
The footman having heard the rapid approach of the gig, 
opened the hall-door the instant the horse was pulled up 
before it, and confronted the doctor with a smile of mali- 
cious satisfaction. 

“Well,” said Mr. Orridge, bustling into the hall, “you 
were all rather surprised last night when the housekeeper 
came back, I suppose?” 

“Yes, sir; we certainly were surprised when she came 
back last night,” answered the footman; “but we were 
still more surprised when she went away again this morn- 
ing.” 

“ Went away! You don’t mean to say she is gone?” 

“Yes, I do, sir— -she has lost her place, and gone for 
good.” The footman smiled again, as he made that reply; 
and the housemaid, who happened to be on her way down- 
stairs while he was speaking, and to hear what he said, 
smiled, too. Mrs. Jazeph had evidently been no favorite 
in tlie servants’ hall. 

Amazement prevented Mr. Orridge from uttering an- 
other word. Hearing no more questions asked, the foot- 
man threw open the door of the breakfast-parlor, and the 
doctor followed him into the room. Mrs. Norbury was 
sitting near the window in a rigidly upright attitude, in- 
flexibly watching the proceedings of her invalid child over 
a basin of beef -tea. 

“I know what you are going to talk about before you 
open your lips,” said the outspoken lady. “ But just look 
to the child flrst, and say what you have to say on that 
subject, if you please, before you enter on any other.” 

The child was examined, was pronounced to be improv- 


116 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


ing rapidly, and was carried away by the nurse to lie down 
and rest a little. As soon as the door of the rooni had 
closed, Mrs. Norbury abruptly addressed the doctor, inter- 
rupting him for the second time, just as he was about to 
speak. 

“Now, Mr. Orridge,” she said, “I want to tell you 
something at the outset. I am a remarkably just woman, 
and I have no quarrel with you. You are the cause of my 
having been treated with the most audacious insolence by 
three people— but you are the innocent cause, and, there- 
fore, I don’t blame you.” 

“ I am really at a loss,” Mr. Orridge began — quite at 
a loss, I assure you ” 

” To know what I mean?” said Mrs. Norbury. I will 
soon tell you. Were you not the original cause of my send- 
ing my housekeeper to nurse Mrs. Frankland?” 

“ Yes.” Mr. Orridge could not hesitate to acknowledge 
that. 

“Well,” pursued Mrs. Norbury, “and the consequence 
of my sending her is, as I said before, that I am treated 
with unparalleled insolence by no less than three people. 
Mrs. Frankland takes an insolent whim into her head, and 
affects to be frightened by my housekeeper. Mr. Frank- 
land shows an insolent readiness to humor that whim, and 
hands me back my housekeeper as if she was a bad shil- 
ling; and last, and worst of all, my housekeeper herself in- 
sults me to my face as soon as she comes back — insults me, 
Mr. Orridge, to that degree that I give her twelve hours’ 
notice to leave the place. Don’t begin to defend yourself! 
I know all about it ; I know you had nothing to do with 
sending her back ; I never said you had. All the mischief 
you have done is innocent mischief. I don’t blame you, 
remember that — whatever you do, Mr, Orridge, remembe? 
that!” 

“I had no idea of defending myself,” said the doctor, 
“for I had no reason to do so. But you surprise me be- 
yond all power of expression when you tell me that Mrs. 
Jazeph treated you with incivility. ’ ’ 

“Incivility!” exclaimed Mrs. Norbury. “Don’t talk 
about incivility — it’s not the word. Impudence is the word 
—brazen impudence. The only charitable thing to say of 
Mrs. Jazeph is that she is not right in her head. I never 
noticed anything odd about her myself ; but the servants 
used to laugh at her for being as timid in the dark as a 
child, and for often running away to her candle in her own 
room when they declined to light the lamps before the 
night had fairly set in. I never troubled my head about 
this before; but I thought of it last night, I can tell you, 


The dead secret, m 

\vhen i found her looking me fiercely in the face and oon- 
tradicting me flatly the moment I spoke to her.” 

“ I should have thought she was the very last woman in 
the world to misbehave herself in that way,” answered the 
doctor. 

“Very well. Now hear what happened when she came 
back last night,” said Mrs. Norbury. “ She got here just 
as we were going up- stairs to bed. Of course I was aston- 
ished ; and, of course, I called her into the drawing-room 
for an explanation. There was nothing very unnatural in 
that course of proceeding, I suppose? Well, J noticed that 
her eyes were swelled and red, and that her looks were re- 
markably wild and queer; but I said nothing, and waited 
for the explanation. All that she had to tell me was that 
something she had unintentionally said or done had fright- 
ened Mrs. Frankland, and that Mrs. Frankland’s husband 
had sent her away on the spot. 

“I disbelieved this at first — and very naturally, I think 
—but she persisted in the story, and answered all my ques- 
tions by declaring that she could tell me nothing more. 
‘ So then, ’ I said, ‘ I am to believe that, after I have incon- 
venienced myself by sparing you, and after you have in- 
convenienced yourself by undertaking the business of 
nurse, I am to be insulted, and you are to be insulted, by 
your being sent away from Mrs. Frankland on .the very 
daj^ when you get to her, because she chooses to take a 
whim into her head?’ ‘I never accused Mrs. Frankland 
of taking a whim into her head,’ said Mrs. Jazeph, and 
stares me straight in the face, with such a look as I never 
saw in her eyes before, after all my five years’ experience 
of her. ‘ What can you mean?’ I asked, giving her back 
her look, I can promise you. ‘ Are you base enough to 
take the treatment you have received in the light of a 
favor?’ ‘ I am just enough,’ said Mrs. Jazeph, as sharp as 
lightning, and still with that same stare straight at me— 
‘lam just enough not to blame Mrs. Frankland.’ ‘Oh, 
you are, are you?’ I said. ‘ Then all I can tell you is that 
I feel this insult, if you don’t; and that I consider Mrs. 
FrankJand’s conduct to be the conduct of an ill-bred, im- 
pudent, capricious, unfeeling woman.’ Mrs. Jazeph takes 
a step up to me— takes a step, I give you my word of 
honor — and says distinctly in so many words, ‘ Mrs. Frank • 
land is neither ill-bred, impudent, capricious nor unfeel- 
ing.’ ‘Do you mean to contradict me, Mrs. Jazeph?’ I 
asked. ‘I mean to defend Mrs. Frankland from unjust 
imputations,’ says she. Those were her words, Mr. Or- 
ridge— on my honor, as a gentlewoman, those were exactly 
her words.” 


118 


THE DEAD SECRET 


The doctor’s face expressed the blankest astonishment. 
Mrs. Norbuiy went on : 

“ I was in a towering passion— I don’t mind confessing 
that, Mr. Orridge— but 1 kept it down. ‘Mrs. Jazeph,’ I 
said, ‘ this is language that 1 am not accustomed to, and 
that I certainly never expected to hear from your lips. 
Why you should take it on yourself to defend Mrs. Frank- 
land for treating us both with contempt, and to contradict 
me for resenting it, I neither know nor care to know. But 
I must tell you, in plain words, that I will be spoken to by 
every person in my employment, from my housekeeper to 
my scullery-maid, with respect. I would have given warn- 
ing on the spot to any other servant in this house who had 
behaved to me as you have behaved.’ She tried to inter- 
rupt me there, but I would not allow her. ‘No,’ I said, 
‘ you are not to speak to me just yet; you are to hear me 
out. Any other servant, I tell you again, should have left 
this place to-morrow morning; but I will be more than just 
to you. I will give you the benefit of your five years’ good 
conduct in my service. I will leave you the rest of the 
night to get cool, and to reflect on what has passed between 
us; and I will not expect you to make the proper apologies 
to me until the morning. ’ 

“ You see, Mr. Orridge, I was determined to act justly 
and kindly; I was ready to make allowances — and what do 
you think she said in return? ‘ I am willing to make any 
apologies, ma’am, for offending you,’ she said, ‘without 
the delay of a single minute; but, whether it is to-night, or 
whether it is to-morrow morning, I cannot stand by silent 
when I hear Mrs. Frankland charged with acting unkindly, 
uncivilly, or improperly toward me or toward any one.’ 
‘Do you tell me that deliberately, Mrs. Jazeph?’ I asked. 
‘I tell it you sincerely, ma’am,’ she answered; ‘and I am 
very sorry to be obliged to do so.’ ‘ Pray don’t trouble 
yourself to be sorry,’ I said, ‘for you may consider your- 
self no longer in my service. I will order the steward to 
pay you the usual month’s wages instead of the month’s 
warning the first thing to-morrow; and I beg that you will 
leave the house as soon as you conveniently can afterward. ’ 
‘I will leave to-morrow, ma’am,’ says she, ‘but without 
troubling the steward. I beg respectfully, and with many 
thanks for your past kindness, to decline taking a month’s 
money which I have not earned by a month’s service.’ 
And thereupon she courtesies and goes out. That is, word 
for word, what passed between us, Mr. Orridge. Explain 
the woman’s conduct in your own way, if you can. I say 
that it is utterly incomprehensible, unless you agree with 
me that she was not in her right senses when she came 
back to this house last night.” 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


119 


The doctor began to think, after what he had just heard, 
that Mrs. Frankland’s suspicions in relation to the new 
nurse were not quite so unfounded as he had been at first 
disposed to consider them. He wisely refrained, however, 
from complicating matters by giving utterance to what he 
thought; and, after answering Mrs. Norbury in a few 
vaguely polite words, endeavored to soothe her irritation 
against Mr. and Mrs. Frankland by assuring her that he 
came as the bearer of apologies from both husband and 
wife, for the apparent want of courtesy and consideration 
in their conduct which circumstances had made inevitable. 
The offended lady, however, absolutely refused to be pro- 
pitiated. She rose up, and waved her hand with an air of 
great dignitj^. 

“I cannot hear a word more from you, Mr. Orridge,” 
she said; “ I cannot receive any apologies which are made 
indirectly. If Mr. Frankland chooses to call, and if Mrs. 
Frankland condescends to write to me, I am willing to 
think no more of the matter. Under any other circum- 
stances, I must be allowed to keep my present opinions 
both of the lady and the gentleman. Don’t say another 
word, and be so kind as to excuse me if I leave you, and 
go up to the nursery to see how the child is getting on. I 
am delighted to hear that you think her so much better. 
Pray call again to-morrow or next day, if you conveniently 
can. Good morning ! ’ ’ 

Half amused at Mrs. Norbury, half displeased at the 
curt tone she adopted toward him, Mr. Orridge remained 
for a minute or two alone in the breakfast-parlor, feeling 
rather undecided about what he should do next. He was, 
by this time, almost as much interested in solving the 
mystery of Mrs. Jazeph’s extraordinary conduct as Mrs. 
Frankland herself; and he felt unwilling, on all accounts, 
to go back to the Tiger’s Head, and merely repeat what 
Mrs. Norbury had told him, without being able to com- 
plete the narrative by informing Mr. and Mrs. Frankland 
of the direction that the housekeeper had taken on leaving 
her situation. After some pondering, he determined to 
question the footman, under the pretense of desiring to 
know if his gig was at the door. , The man having an- 
swered the bell, and having reported the gig to be ready, 
Mr. Orridge, while crossing the hall, asked him carelessly 
if he knew at w’hat time in the morning Mrs. Jazeph had 
left her place. 

“About ten o’clock, sir,” answered the footman. 
“ When the carrier came by from the village, on his way 
to the station for the eleven o’clock train.” 

“ Oh! I suppose he took her boxes?” said Mr. Orridge. 

“ And he took her, too, sir,” said the man, with a grin. 


l;saO THE DEAD SECRET 

“She had to ride, for once in her life, at any rate, in a 
carrier’s cart.” 

On getting back to West Winston, the doctor stopped at 
the station to collect further particulars before he returned 
to the Tiger’s Head. No trains, either up or down, hap- 
pened to be due just at that time. The station-master was 
reading the newspaper, and the porter was gardening on 
the slope of the embankment. 

“ Is the train at eleven in the morning an up- train or a 
down-train?” asked Mr. Orridge, addressing the porter. 

“ A doWn-train.” 

“Did many people go by it?” 

The porter repeated the names of some of the inhabitants 
of West Winston. 

“Were there no passengers but passengers from the 
town?” inquired the doctor. 

“ Yes, sir. I think there was one stranger— a lady.” 

“ Did the station-master issue the tickets for that train?” 

“Yes, sir.” * 

Mr. Orridge went on to the station-master. 

“ Do you remember giving a ticket this morning, by the 
eleven o’clock down- train, 1o a lady traveling alone?” 

The station-master pondered. “I have issued tickets, 
up and down, to half a dozen ladies to-day,” he answered, 
doubtfully. 

“Yes, but lam speaking only of the eleven o’clock 
train,” said Mr. Orridge. “ Try if you can’t remember.” 

“Eemember? Stop! I do remember; I know who you 
mean. A lady who seemed rather flurried, and who put a 
question to me that I am not often asked at this station. 
She had her veil down, I recollect, and she got here for 
the eleven o’clock train. Crouch, the carrier, brought her 
trunk into the oflSce.” 

“That is the woman. Where did she take her ticket 
for?” 

“ For Exeter,” 

“ You said she asked you a question?” 

“Yes: a question about what coaches met the rail at 
Exeter to take travelers into Cornwall. I told her we were 
rather too far off hereto have the correct time-table, and 
recommended her to apply for information to the Devon- 
shire people when she got to the end of her journey. She 
seemed a timid, helpless kind of a woman to travel alone. 
Anything wrong in connection with her, sir?” 

“Oh, no! nothing,” said Mr. Orridge, leaving the sta- 
tion-master and hastening back to his gig again. 

When he drew up, a few minutes afterward, at the door 
of the Tiger’s Head, he jumped out of his vehicle with the 
confideut air of a man who has done all that could be ex- 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


121 


pected of him. It was easy to face Mrs. Frankland with 
the unsatisfactory news of Mrs. Jazeph’s departure, now 
that he could add, on the best authority, the important 
supplementary information that she had gone to Cornwall. 


o 


BOOK IV. 


CHAPTER I. 

A PLOT AGAINST THE SECRET. 

Toward the close of the evening, on the day after Mr. 
Orridge’s interview with Mrs. Norbury, the Druid fast 
coach, running through Cornwall as far as Truro, set down 
three inside passengers at the door of the booking-office on 
arriving at its destination. Two of these passengers were 
an old gentleman and his daughter; the third was Mrs. 
Jazeph. 

The father and daughter collected their luggage and 
entered the hotel ; the outside passengers branched off in 
different directions with as little delay as possible ; Mrs. 
Jazeph alone stood irresolute on the pavement, and seemed 
uncertain what she should do next. When the coachman 
good-naturedly endeavored to assist her in arriving at a 
decision of some kind by asking whether he could do any- 
thing to help her, she started and looked at him sus- 
piciously; then, appearing to recollect herself , thanked him 
for his kindness, and inquired, with a confusion of words 
and a hesitation of manner which appeared very extraordi- 
nary in the coachman’s eyes, whether she might be al- 
lowed to leave her trunk at the booking-office for a little 
while, until she could return and call for it again. 

Receiving permission to leave her trunk as long as she 
pleased, she crossed over the principal street of the town, as- 
cended the pavement on the opposite side, and walked down 
the first turning she came to. On entering the by -street 
to which the turning led, she glanced back, satisfied her- 
self that nobody was following or watching her, hastened 
on a few yards and stopped again at a small shop devoted 
to the sale of book-cases, cabinets, work-boxes, and writing- 
desks. After first looking up at the letters painted over the 
door— ‘ ' Buschmann, Cabinet-maker, etc.”— she peered in 
at the shop window. A middle-aged man, with a cheerful 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


m 

face, sat behind the countt^r. polishing a rosewood bracket, 
and nodding briskly at regular intervals, as if he were 
humming a tune and keeping time to it with his head. 
Seeing no customers in the shop, Mrs. Jazeph opened the 
door and walked in. 

As soon as she was inside she became aware that the 
clieerful man behind the counter was keeping time, not to 
a tune of his own humming, but to a tune played by a 
musical box. The clear ringing notes came from a parlor 
behind the shop, and the air the box was playing was the 
lovely “ Batti, Batti,”.of Mozart. 

“Is Mr. Buschmann at home?” asked Mrs. Jazeph. 

“Yes, ma’am,” said the cheerful man, pointing with a 
smile toward the door that led into the parlor. “ The 
music answers for him. Whenever Mr. Buschmann ’s box 
is playing Mr. Buschmann himself is not far off from it. 
Did you wish to see him, ma’am?” 

“If there is nobody with him.” 

“Oh, no, he is quite alone. Shall I give any name!” 

Mrs. Jazeph opened her lips to answer, hesitated, and 
said nothing. The shopman, with a quicker delicacy of 
perception than might have been expected from him, judg- 
ing by outward appearances, did not repeat the question, 
but opened the door at once and admitted the visitor to 
the presence of Mr. Buschmann. 

The shop-parlor was a very small room, with an odd 
three-corned look about it, with a bright green paper on 
the walls, with a large dried fish in a glass case over the 
^replace, with two meerschaum pipes hanging together on 
the wall opposite, and a neat round table placed as accu- 
rately as possible in the middle of the floor. On the table 
were tea-things, bread, butter, a pot of jam, and a musical 
box in a quaint, old-fashioned case ; and by the side of the 
table sat a little, rosy-faced, white-haired, simple-looking 
old man, who started up when the door was opened, with 
an appearance of extreme confusion and touched the top of 
the musical box so that it might cease playing when 
it came to the end of the air. 

“A lady to speak to you, sir,” said the cheerful shop- 
man. “That is Mr. Buschmann, ma’am,” he added in a 
lower tone, seeing Mrs. Jazeph stop in apparent uncertainty 
on entering the parlor. 

“Will you please take a seat, ma’am?” said Mr. Busch- 
mann, when the shopman had closed the door and gone 
back to his counter. “Excuse the music; it will stop di- 
rectly.” He spoke thesje words in a foreign accent, but 
with perfect fluency. 

Mrs. Jazeph looked at him earnestly while he was ad- 
dressing her, and advanced a step or two before she said 


Tm DEAD SECnET. 


m 


anything. “Am I so changed?’’ she asked softl}^ “So 
sadly, sadly changed, Uncle Joseph?” 

“Grottim Himmel! it’s her voice—it’s Sarah Leeson !’’ 
cried the old man, running up to his visitor as nimbly as if 
he was a boy again, taking both her hands and kissing her 
with an odd, brisk tenderness on the cheek. Although his 
niece was not at all above the average height of women, 
Uncle Joseph was so short that he had to raise himself on 
tiptoe to perform the ceremony of embracing her. 

“To think of Sarah coming at last!” he said, pressing 
her into a chair. “ After all these years and years, to 
think of Sarah Leeson coming to see Uncle Joseph again!” 

“Sarah still, but not Sarah Leeson,” said Mrs. Jazeph, 
pressing her thin, trembling hands firmly together and 
looking down on the floor while she spoke. 

“Ah! married?” said Mr. Buschmann, gayly. “Mar- 
ried, of course. Tell me all about your husband, Sarah.” 

“ He is dead. Dead and forgiven.” She murmured the 
last three words in a whisper to herself. 

“ Ah! I am so sorry for you ! I spoke too suddenly, did 
I not, my child?” said the old man. “Never mind! No, 
no; I don’t mean that — I mean let us talk of something 
else. You will have a bit of bread and jam, won’t you, 
Sarah? — ravishing raspberry jam that melts in your mouth. 
Some tea, then? So, so, she will have some tea, to be sure. 
And we won’t talk of our troubles — at least, not just yet. 
You look very pale, Sarah— very much older than you 
ought to look — no, I don’t mean that, either; I don't mean 
to be rude. It was your voice I knew you by, my child— 
your voice that your poor uncle Max always said would 
have made your fortune if you would only have learned to 
sing. Here’s his pretty music-box going still. Don’t look 
so down-hearted — don’t, pray. Do listen a little to the 
music: you remember the box? — my brother Max’s box? 
Why, how you look ! Have you forgotten the box that the 
divine Mozart gave to my brother with his own hand when 
Max was a boy in the music school at Vienna? Listen! I 
have set it going again. It’s a song they call ‘Batti, 
Batti;’ it’s a song in an opera of Mozart’s. Ah! beautiful! 
beautiful ! Your uncle Max said that all music was com- 
prehended in that one song. I know nothing about music, 
but I have my heart and my ears, and they tell me that 
Max was right.” 

Speaking these words with abundant gesticulation and 
amazing volubility, Mr Buschmann poured out a cup of 
tea for his niece, stirred it carefully, and, patting her on 
the shoulder, begged that she would make him happy by 
drinking it all up directly. As he came close to her to 
press this request he discovered that the tears were in her 


124 


mE DEAD SECRET. 


eyes, and that she was trying to take her handkerchief 
from her pocket without being observed. 

“ Don’t mind me, ” she said, seeing the old man’s face 
sadden as he looked at her; “and don’t think me forget- 
ful or ungrateful, Uncle Joseph. I remember the box — I 
remember everything that you used to take an interest in, 
when I was younger and happier than I am now. When I 
last saw you I came to you in trouble ; and I come to you 
in trouble once more. It seems neglectful in me never to 
have written to you for so many years past ; but my life 
has been a very sad one, and I thought I had no right to 
lay the burden of my sorrow on other shoulders than my 
own.” 

Uncle Joseph shook his head at these last words, and 
touched the top of the musical box. “ Mozart shall wait a 
little,” he said, gravely, “ till I have told you something. 
Sarah, hear what I say, and drink your tea, and own to 
me whether I speak the truth or not. What did I, Joseph 
Buschmann, tell you when you first came tome in trouble, 
fourteen, fifteen, ah more! sixteen years ago, in this town, 
and in this same house? I said then, what I say again 
now: ‘ Sarah’s sorrow is my sorrow, and Sarah’s joy is my 
joy;’ and if any man asks me reasons for that I have three 
to give him.” 

He stopped to stir up his niece’s tea for the second time, 
and to draw her attention to it by tapping with the spoon 
on the edge of the cup. 

“ Three reasons,” he resumed. “First, you are my sis- 
ter’s child — some of her flesh and blood, and some of mine, 
therefore, also. Second, my sister, my brother, and lastly 
me myself, we owe to your good English father— all. A 
little word that means much, and may be said again and 
again — all. Your father’s friends cry: Fy! Agatha 
Buschmann is poor I Agatha Buschmann is foreign ! But 
your father loves the poor German girl, and he marries 
her in spite of their Fy, Fy. Your father’s friend’s cry 
Fy! again: Agatha Buschmann has a musician brother, 
who gabbles to us about Mozart, and who cannot make to 
his porridge salt. Your father says. Good! I like his 
gabble; I like his playing; I shall get him people to teach; 
and while I have pinches of salt in my kitchen, he to his 
porridge shall have pinches of salt too. Your father’s 
friends cry Fy ! for the third time. Agatha Buschmann 
has another brother, a little Stupid- Head, who to the 
other’s gabble can only listen and say Amen. Send him 
trotting; for the love of Heaven, shut up all the doors and 
send Stupid-Head trotting, at least ! Your father says. No ! 
Stupid-Head has his wits in his hands; he can cut and 
carve and polish; help him a little at the starting, and 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


125 


after he shall help himself. They are all gone now but 
me ! Your father, your mother, and Uncle Max — they are 
all gone. Stupid-Head alone remains to remember and to 
be grateful— to take Sarah’s sorrow for hi3 sorrow, and 
Sarah’s joy for his joy.” 

He stopped again to blow a speck of dust off the musical 
box. His niece endeavored to speak, but he held up his 
hand, and shook his forefinger at her warningly. 

“No,” he said. “It is yet my business to talk, and 
your business to drink tea. Have I not my third reason 
still? Ah! you look away from me; you know my third 
reason before I say a word. When I, in my turn, marry, 
and my wife dies, and leaves me alone with little Joseph, 
and when the boy falls sick, who comes then, so quiet, so 
pretty, so neat, with the bright young eyes, and the hands 
so tender and light? Who helps me with little Joseph by 
night and by day ? Who makes a pillow for him on her 
arm when her head is weary? Who holds this box pa- 
tiently at his ear? — yes! this box, that the hand of Mozart 
has touched— who holds it closer, closer always, when 
little Joseph’s sense grows dull, and he moans for the 
friendly music that he has known from a baby, the friendly 
music that he can now so hardly, hardly hear? Who 
kneels down by Uncle Joseph when his heart is breaking, 
and says, ‘ Oh, hush ! hush ! The boy is gone where the 
better music plays, where the sickness shall never waste 
or the sorrow touch him more?’ Who! Ah, Sarah! you 
cannot forget those days ; you cannot forget the long ago ! 
When the trouble is bitter, and the burden is heavy, it is 
cruelty to Uncle Joseph to keep away; it is kindness to 
him to come here.” 

The recollections that the old man had called up found 
their way tenderly to Sarah’s heart. She could not answer 
him; she could only hold out her hand. Uncle Joseph 
bent down, with a quaint, affectionate gallantry, and kissed 
it; then stepped back again to his place by the musical 
box. “Come!” he said, patting it cheerfully, “we will 
say no more for awhile. Mozart’s box. Max’s box, little 
Joseph’s box, you shall talk to us again!” 

Having put the tiny machinery in motion, he sat down 
by the table, and remained silent until the air had been 
played over twice. Then observing that his niece seemed 
calmer, he spoke to her once more. , 

“You are in trouble, Sarah,” be said, quietly. “You 
tell me that, and I see it is true in your face. Are you 
grieving for your husband?” 

“I grieve that I ever met him,” she answered. “I 
grieve that I ever married him. Now that he is dead, I 
cannot grieve— I can only forgive him,” 


126 


THE DEAD SECRET 


“Fo^ive him? How you look, Sarah, when you say 
that ! Tell me ’ ’ 

“Uncle Joseph! I have told you that my husband is 
dead, and that I have forgiven him.” 

“You have forgiven him? He was hard and cruel with 
you, then? I see; I see. That is the end, Sarah — but the 
beginning? Is the beginning that you loved him?” 

Her pale cheeks flushed ; and she turned her head aside. 
“ It is hard and humbling to confess it,” she murmured, 
without raising her eyes; “ but you force the truth from 
me, uncle. I had no love to give to my husband— no love 
to give to any man.” 

“And yet you married him! Wait! it is not for me to 
blame. It is for me to And out, not the bad, but the good. 
Yes, yes; I shall say to myself, she married him when she 
was poor and helpless ; she married him when she should 
have come to Uncle Joseph instead. I shall say that to 
myself, and I shall pity, but I shall ask no more.” 

Sarah half reached her hand out to the old man again — 
then suddenly pushed her chair back, and changed the 
position in which she was sitting. “It is true that I was 
poor,” she said, looking about her in confusion, and speak- 
ing with difficulty. “ But you are so kind and so good, I 
cannot accept the excuse that your forbearance ma&s for 

me. 1 did not marry him because I was poor, but ” 

She stopped, clasped her hands together, and pushed her 
chair back still further from the table. 

“So! so!” said the old man, noticing her confusion. 
“We will talk about it no more.” 

“I had no excuse of love; I had no excus4 of poverty,” 
she said, with a sudden burst of bitterness and despair. 
“Uncle Joseph, I married him because I was too weak to 
persist in saying No! The curse of weakness and fear has 
followed me all the days mj’ life ! I said No to him once. 
I said No to him twice. Oh, uncle, if I could only have 
said it for the third time ! But he followed me, he fright- 
ened me, he took away from me all the little will of my 
own that I had. He made me speak as he wished me to 
speak, and go where he wished me to go. No, no, no— 
don’t come to me, uncle; don’t say anything. He is gone; 
he is dead— I have got my release ; I have given my par- 
don ! Oh, if I could only go away and hide somei^iere ! 
All people’s eyes seem to look through me; all people's 
words seem to threaten me. My heart has been weary 
ever since I was a young woman; and all these long, long 
years it has never got any rest. Hush ! the man in the 
shop— I forgot the man in the shop. He will hear us ; let us 
talk in a whisper. What made me break out so? I’m al 
ways wrong. Oh, me! I’m wrong when I speak; I’m 


THE DEAD SECRET. 127 

wrong when I say nothing; Avherever I go and whatever I 
do, I’m not like other people. I seem never to have grown 
up in my mind since I was a little child. Hark ! the man 
in the shop is moving — has he heard me? Oh, Uncle 
Joseph ! do you think he has heard me?” 

Looking hardly less startled than his niece, Uncle Joseph 
assured her that the door was solid, that the man’s place 
in the shop was at some distance from it, and that it was 
impossible, even if he heard voices in the parlor, that he 
could also distinguish any words that were spoken in it. 

“You are sure of that?” she whispered, hurriedly. 

” Yes, yes, you are sure of that, or you would not have 
told me so, would you? We may go on talking now. Not 
about my married life : that is buried and past. Say that 
I had some years of sorrow and suffering, which I deserved 
— say that I had other years of quiet, when I was living in 
service with masters and mistresses who were often kind to 
me when my fellow-servants were not — say just that much 
about my liCe, and it is saying enough. The trouble that 
I am in now, the trouble that brings me to you, goes back 
further than the years we have been talking about— goes 
back, back, back, Uncle Joseph, to the distant day when 
we last met. ” 

” Goes back all through the sixteen years!” exclaimed 
the old man, incredulously. ”Goes back, Sarah, even to 
the Long Ago!” 

” Even to that time. Uncle, you remember where I was 
living, and what had happened to me, when ” 

“ When you came here in secret? When you asked me 
to hide you? That was the same week, Sarah, when your 
mistress died ; your mistress who lived away west in the old 
house. You were frightened, then— pale and frightened as 
I see you now.” 

“As every one sees me! People are always staring at 
me; always thinking that I am nervous, always pitying me 
for being ill. ” 

Saying these words with a sudden fretfulness, she lifted 
the tea-cup by her side to her lips, drained it of its contents 
at a draught, and pushed it across the table to be filled 
again. “1 have come all over thirsty and hot,” she whis 
pered. “ More tea. Uncle Joseph — more tea.” 

“ It is cold,” said the old man. “ Wait till I ask for hot^ 
water.” 

“No!” she exclaimed, stopping him as he was about ^o * 
rise. “Give it me cold; I like it cold. Let nobody else 
come in— I can’t speak if anybody else comes in.” She 
drew her chair close to her uncle’s, and went on: “You 
have not forgotten how frightened I was in that bygone 
time— do you remember why I was frightened?” 


128 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


“You were afraid of being followed— that was it, Sarah. 
1 grow old, but my memory keeps young. You were afraid 
of your master, afraid of his sending servants after you. 
You had run away; you had spoken no word to anybody; 
and you spoke little— ah, very, very little— even to Uncle 
Joseph— even to me.” 

“ I told you,” said Sarah, dropping her voice to so faint 
a whisper that the old man could barely hear her—' ‘ I told 
you that my mistress had left me a Secret on her death-bed 
—a Secret in a letter, which I was to give to my master. I 
told you I had hidden the letter, because I could not bring 
myself to deliver it, because I would rather die a thousand 
times over than be questioned about what I knew of it. I 
told you so much, I know. Did I tell you no more? Did 
I not say that my mistress made me take an oath on the 
Bible? Uncle! are there candles in the room? Are there 
candles we can light without disturbing anybody, without 
Galling anybody in here?” 

“ There are candles and a match-box in my cupboard,” 
answered Uncle Joseph. “But look out of window, 
Sarah. It is only twilight— it is not dark yet. ’ ’ 

“ Not outside; but it is dark here.” 

“Where?” 

“ In that corner. Let us have candles. I don’t like the 
darkness when it gathers in corners and creeps along 
walls.” 

Uncle Joseph looked all round the room inquiringly; 
and smiled to himself as he took two candles from the 
cupboard and lighted them. “You are like the children,” 
he said, playfully, while he pulled down the window-blind. 

‘ You are afraid of the dark.” 

Sarah did not appear to hear him. Her eyes were fixed 
on the corner of the room which she had pointed out the 
moment before. When he resumed his place by her side, 
she never looked round, but laid her hand on his arm, and 
said to him, suddenly : 

“Uncle! Do you "believe that the dead can comeback 
to this world, and follow the living everywhere, and see 
what they do in it?” 

The old man started. “Sarah!” he said, “why do you 
talk so? Why do you ask me such a question?” 

“ Are there lonely hours,” she went on, still never look- 
ing away from the corner, still not seeming to hear him, 
“ when you are sometimes frightened without knowing 
why — frightened all over in an instant, from head to foot? 
Tell me, uncle, have you ever felt the cold steal round and 
round the roots of your hair, and crawl bit by bit down 
your back? I have felt that even in the summer. I have 
been out of doors, alone on a wide heath, in the heat and 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


1S9 


brightness of noon, and have felt as if chilly fingers were 
touching me— chilly, damp, softly creeping fingers. It says 
in the New Testament that the dead came once out of their 
graves, and went into the holy city. The dead ! Have they 
rested, rested always, rested forever, since that time?” 

Uncle Joseph’s simple nature recoiled in bewilderment 
from the dark and daring speculations to which his niece’s 
questions led. Without saying a word, he tried to draw 
away the arm which she still held ; but the only result of 
the effort was to make her tighten her grasp, and bend for- 
ward in her chair so as to look closer still into the corner 
of the room. 

“ My mistress was dying,” she said—” my mistress was 
very near her grave, when she made me take my oath on 
the Bible. She made me swear never to destroy the letter ; 
and I did not destroy it. She made me swear not to take 
it away with me, if I left the house ; and I did not take it 
away. She would have made me swear, for the third 
time, to give it to my master, but death was too quick for 
her — death stopped her from fastening that third oath on 
my conscience. But she threatened me, uncle, with the 
dead dampness on her forehead, and the dead whiteness on 
her cheeks — she threatened to come to me from the other 
world if I thwarted her — and I have thwarted her!” 

She stopped, suddenly removed her hand from the old 
man’s arms, and made a strange gesture with it toward 
the part of the room on which her eyes remained fixed. 
“Rest, mistress, rest,” she whispered,' under her breath. 
“Is my master alive now? Rest, till the drowned rise. 
Tell him the secret when the sea gives up her dead.” 

“Sarah! Sarah! you are changed — you are ill — you 
frighten me!” cried Uncle Joseph, starting to his feet. 

She turned round slowly, and looked at him with eyes 
void of all expression, with eyes that seemed to be staring 
through him vacantly at something beyond. 

“ Gott im himmel! what does she see?” He looked 
round as the exclamation escaped him. “Sarah! what is 
it? Are you faint? Are you ill? Are you dreaming with 
your eyes open?” 

He took her by both arms and shook her. At the in- 
stant when she felt the touch of his hands, she started vio- 
lently and trembled-all over. Their natural expression 
flew back into her eyes with the rapidity of a flash of light. 
Without saying a word, she hastily resumed her seat and 
began stirring the cold tea round and round in her cup, 
round and round so fast that the liquid overflowed into the 
saucer. 

“ Come! she gets more like herself,” said Uncle Joseph, 
watching her. 


130 


THE -DEAD SECRET 


“ More like myself she repeated, vacalltl 3 ^ 

“So! so!’" said the old man, trying to soothe her. 

‘ ‘ You are ill— what the English call out of sort. They are 
good doctors here. Wait till to-morrow, you shall have 
the best.” 

“ I want no doctors. Don’t speak of doctors. I can’t 
bear them ; they look at me with such curious eyes ; they 
are always prying into me, as if they wanted to find out 
something. What have we been stopping for? I had so ' 
much to say; and we seem to have been stopping just . 
when we ought to have been going on. I am in grief and 
terror, Uncle Joseph; in grief and terror again about the 
Secret ” 

“ No more of that 1” pleaded the old man. “No more 
to-night at least !” 

“Why not?” 

“Because you will be ill again with talking about it. 
You will be looking into that corner, and dreaming with 
your eyes open. You are too ill— yes, yes, Sarah; you are 
too ill.” 

“I’m not ill! Oh, why does everybody keep telling me 
that I am ill? Let me talk about it, uncle. I have come 
to talk about it; I can’t rest till I have told you.” 

She spoke with a changing color and an embarrassed 
manner, now apparently conscious for the first time that 
she had allowed words and actions to escape her which it 
would have been more prudent to have restrained. 

“Don’t notice me again,” she said, with her soft voice, 
and her gentle, pleading manner. “ Don’t notice me if I 
talk or look as I ouglit not. I lose myself sometimes, 
without knowing it ; and I suppose I lost myself just now. 
It means nothing, Uncle Joseph — nothing, indeed.” 

Endeavoring thus to reassure the old man, she again 
altered the position of her chair, so as to place her back 
toward the part of the room to which her face had been 
hitherto turned. 

“ Well, well, it is good tb hear that,” said Uncle Joseph; 
“but speak no more about the past time, for fear you 
should lose yourself again. Let us hear about what is now. 
Yes, yes, give me my way. Leave the Long Ago to me, 
and take you the present time. ^ I can go tock through 
the sixteen years as well as you can. Ah! you doubt it? 
Hear me tell you what happened when we last met — hear 
me prove myself in three words: You leave your place at 
the old house — you run away here — you stop in hiding with 
me, while your master and his servants are hunting after 
you — you start off, when the road is clear, to work for 
your living, as far away from Cornwall as you can get — I 
beg and pray you to stop with me, but you are afraid of 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


181 


your master, and away you go. There ! that is the whole 
story of your trouble the last time you came to this house. 
Leave it so ; and tell me what is the cause of your trouble 
now.” 

“The past cause of my trouble, Uncle Joseph, and the 
present cause of my trouble are just the same. The Se- 
cret ” 

“ What! will you go back to that?” 

“ I must go back to it.” 

“And why?” 

“ Because the Secret is written in a letter ” 

“ Yes; and what of that?” 

“ And the letter is in danger of being discovered. It 
is, uncle— it is ! Sixteen years it has lain hidden — and 
now, after all that long time, the dreadful chance of its 
being dragged to light has come like a judgment. The 
one person in all the world who ought never to set eyes 
on that letter is the very person who is most likely to 
find it!” 

“So! so! Are you very certain, Sarah? How do you 
know it?” 

“ I know it from her own lips. Chance brought us to- 
gether ” 

“Us? us? What do you mean by us?” 

‘ ‘ I mean — uncle, you remember that Captain Tre verton 
was my master when I lived at Porthgenna Tower?” 

“I had forgotten his name. But no matter — go on.” 

“When I left my place, Miss Treverton was a little girl 
of five years old. She is a married woman now — so beau- 
tiful, so clever, such a sweet, youthful, happy face ! And 
she has a child as lovely as herself. Oh, uncle, if you 
could see her ! I would give so much if you could only see 
her!” 

Uncle Joseph kissed his hand and shrugged his shoul- 
ders; expressing by the first action homage to the lady’s 
beauty, and by the second resignation under the misfort- 
une of not being able to see her. “Well, well,” he said, 
philosophically, “put this shining woman by, and let us 
go on.” 

“Her name is Frankland now,” said Sarah. “A 
prettier name than Treverton — a much prettier name, I 
think. Her husband is fond of her — I am sure he is. 
How can he have any heart at all, and not be fond of 
her?” 

“So! so!” exclaimed Uncle Joseph, looking very much 
perplexed. “Good, if he is fond or her— very good. But 
what labyrinth are we getting into now? Wherefore all 
this about a husband and a wife? My word of honor. 


133' THE DEAD SECRET, 

Sarah, but your explanation explains nothing— it only 
softens my brains.” 

“I must speak of her and of Mr. Prankland, uncle. 
Porthgenna Tower belongs to her husband now, and they 
are both going to live there.” 

“Ah I we are getting back into the straight road at last. ” 

‘ ‘ They are going to live in the very house that holds the 
Secret ; they are going to repair that very part of it where 
the letter is hidden. She will go into the old rooms — I 
heard her say so ; she will search about in them to amuse 
her curiosity; workmen will clear them out, and she will 
stand by in her idle hours, looking on.” 

“ But she suspects nothing of the Secret?” 

“God forbid she ever should !” 

“ And there are many rooms in the house? And the let- 
ter in which the Secret is written is hidden in one of the 
many? Why should she hit on that one?” 

‘ ‘ Because I always say the wrong thing ! because I al- 
ways get frightened and lose myself at the wrong time! 
The letter is hidden in a room called the Myrtle Room, and 
I was foolish enough, weak enough, crazed enough, to warn 
her against going into it.” 

“ Ah, Sarah! Sarah! that was a mistake indeed.” 

“I can’t tell what possessed me- 1 seemed to lose my 
senses when I heard her talking so innocently of amusing 
herself by searching through the old rooms, and when I 
thought of what she might find there. It was getting on 
toward night, too ; the horrible twilight was gathering in 
the corners and creeping along the walls. I longed to light 
the candles, and yet I did not dare, for fear she should see 
the truth in my face. And when I did light thein it was 
worse. Oh, I don’t know how I did it ! I don’t know why 
I did it ! I could have torn my tongue out for saying the 
words, and still I said them. Other people can think for 
the best ; other people can act for the best ; other people 
have had a heavy weight laid on their minds, and have not 
dropped under it as I have. Help me, uncle, for the sake 
of old times when we were happy— help me with a word 
of advice.” 

“I will help you; I live to help you, Sarah! No, no, no 
— ^you must not look so forlorn ; you must not look at me 
with those crying eyes. Come I I will advise this minute 
— but say in what; only say in what.” 

‘ “ Have I not told you?” 

“No; you have not told me a word yet.” 

“ I will tell you now.” 

She paused, looked away distrustfully toward the door 
leading into the shop, listened a little, and resumed: “I 
am not at the end of my journey yet, Uncle Joseph— I am 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


183 


here on my way to Porthgenna Tower — on my way to the 
Myrtle Eoom— on my way, step by step, to the place where 
the letter lies hid. I dare not destroy it ; I dare not re- 
move it ; but run what risk I may, I must take it out of the 
M^tle Eoom.” 

Uncle Joseph said nothing, but he shook his head de- 
spondingly. 

“I must,” she repeated — “before Mrs. Frankland gets 
to Porthgenna, I must take that letter out of the Myrtle 
Eoom. There are places in the old house where I may 
hide it again— places that she would never think of — 
places that she would never notice. Only let me get it 
out of the one room that she is sure to search in, and 
I know where to hide it from her and from every one for- 
ever.” 


Uncle Joseph reflected, and shook his head again— then 
said : 

“ One word, Sarah; does Mrs. Frankland know which is 
the Myrtle Eoom?” 

“ I did my best to destroy all trace of that name when I 
hid the letter; I hope and believe she does not. But she 
may find out— remember the words I was crazed enough 
to speak ; they will set her seeking for the Myrtle Eoom ; 
they are sure to do that.” 

“And if she finds.it? And if she finds the letter?” 

“It will cause misery to innocent people; it will bring 
death to me. Don’t push your chair from me, uncle ! It 
is not shameful death I speak of. The worst injury I have 
done is injury to myself; the worst death I have to fear is 
the death that releases a worn-out spirit and cures a broken 
heart.” ' • 

“ Enough— enough so,” said the old man. “I ask for no 
secret, Sarah, that is not yours to give. It is all dark to 
me— very dark, very confused. I look away from it; I 
look only toward you. Not with doubt, my child, but with 
pity, and with sorrow, too — sorrow that ever you went 
near that house of Porthgenna — sorrow that you are now 
going to it again. ” 

“I have no choice, uncle, but to go. If every step on 
the road to Porthgenna took me nearer and nearer to my 
death, I must still tread it. Knowing what I know, I can’t 
rest, I can’t sleep— my very breath won’t come freely — till 
I have got that letter out of the Myrtle Eoom. How to do 
it— oh, Uncle Joseph, how to do it, without being suspected, 
without being discovered by anybody— that is what I 
would almost give my life to know I You are a man ; you 
are older and wiser than I am; no living creature ever 
asked you for help iii vain — help me now ! my only friend 
jji all the world, help me a little with a word of advice!” 


134 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


Uncle Joseph rose from the chair, and folded his arms 
resolutely, and looked his niece full in the face. 

“ You will go?” he said. “ Cost what it may, you will 
go? Say, for the last time, Sarah, is it yes or no?” 

“ Yes! For the last time, I say Yes.” 

“ Good. And you will go soon?” 

“I must go to-morrow. I dare not waste a single day; 
hours even may be precious for anything I can tell.” 

“ You promise me, my child, that the hiding of this Se- 
cret does good, and that the finding of it will do harm?” 

“ If it was the last word I had to speak in this world, I 
would say Yes!” 

“You promise me, also, that you want nothing but to 
take the letter out of the Myrtle Room, and put it away 
somewhere else?” 

‘ ‘ Nothing but that. ’ ’ 

“ And it is yours to take and yours to put? No person 
has a better right to touch it than you?” 

“ Now that my master is dead, no person.” 

“Good. You have given me my resolution. I have 
done. Sit you there, Sarah; and wonder, if you like, but 
say nothing.” With these words. Uncle Joseph stepped 
lightly to the door leading into the shop, opened it, and 
called to the man behind thb counter. 

“Samuel, my friend,” he said. “To-morrow I go a 
little ways into the country with my niece, who is this lady 
here. You keep shop and take orders, and be just as care- 
ful as you always are, till I get back. If anybody comes 
and asks for Mr. Buschmann, say he has gone a little ways 
into the country and will be back in a few days. That is 
all. Shut up the shop, Samuel, my friend, for the night; 
and go to your supper. I wish you good appetite, nice 
victuals, and sound sleep.” 

Before Samuel could thank his master, the door was shut 
again. Before Sarah could say a word, Uncle Joseph’s 
hand was on her li))s, and Uncle Joseph’s handkerchief 
was wiping away the tears that were now falling fast from 
her eyes. 

“I will have no more talking, and no more crying,” 
said the old man. “ I am a German, and I glory in the 
obstinacy of six Englishmen, all rolled into one. To-night 
you sleep here, to-morrow we talk again of all this. You 
want me to help you with a word of advice. I will help 
you with myself, which is better than advice, and I say no 
more till I fetch my pipe down from the wall there, and 
ask him to make me think. I smoke and think to-night 
—I talk and do to-morrow. And you, you go up to bed ; 
you take Uncle Max’s music-box in your hand, and you let 
Mozart sing the cradle-song before you go to sleep. Yes, 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


yes, my child, there is always comfort in Mozart— better 
comfort than in crying. What is there to cry about, or to 
think about? Is it so great a wonder that I will not let 
my sister’s child go alone to make a venture in the dark? 
I said Sarah’s sorrow was my sorrow, and Sarah’s joy my 
joy ; and now, if there is no way of escape — if it must in- 
deed be done — I also say: Sarah’s risk to-morrow is Uncle 
Joseph’s risk to-morrow, too! Good-night, my child- 
good -night.” 


CHAPTER II. 

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE. 

The next morning wrought no change in the resolution 
at which Uncle Joseph had arrived overnight. Out of the 
amazement and confusion produced in his mind by his 
niece’s avowal of the object that had brought her to Corn- 
wall, he had contrived to extract one clear and definite 
conclusion — that she was obstinately bent on placing her- 
self in a situation of uncertainty, if not of absolute peril. 
Once persuaded of this, his kindly instincts all sprung into 
action, his natural firmness on the side of self-sacrifice 
asserted itself, and his determination not to let Sarah pro- 
ceed on her journey alone, followed as a matter of course. 

Strong in the self-denying generosity of his purpose— 
though strong in nothing else— when he and his niece met 
in the morning, and when Sarah spoke self- reproachfully of 
the sacrifice that he was making, of the serious hazards to 
which he was exposing himself for her sake, he refused to 
listen to her just as ofctinately as he had refused the pre- 
vious night. There was no need, he said, to speak another 
word on that subject. If she had abandoned her intention 
of going to Porthgenna, she had only to say so. If she had 
not, it was mere waste of breath to talk any more, for he 
was deaf in both ears to everything in the shape of a re- 
monstrance that she could possibly address to him. Hav- 
ing expressed himself in these uncompromising t^rms, 
Uncle Joseph abruptly dismissed the subject, and tried to 
turn the conversation to a cheerful every-day topic by ask- 
ing his niece how she had passed the night. 

“ I was too anxious to sleep,” she answered. “ I can’t 
fight with my fears and misgivings as some people can. 
All night long they keep me waking and thinking as if it 
was day.” 

“Thinking about what?” asked Uncle Joseph. “About 
the letter that is hidden? about the house of Porthgenna? 
about the Myrtle Room?” 

“About how to get into the Myrtle Room,” she said. 
“The more I try to plan and ponder, and settle beforehand 


136 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


what I shall do, the more confused and helpless I seem to 
be. All last night, uncle, I was trying to think of some 
excuse for getting inside the doors of Porthgenna Tower— 
and yet if I was standing on the house-step at this moment, 
I should not know what to say when the servant and I first 
came face to face. How are we to persuade them to let us 
in? How am I to slip out of sight, even if we do get in? 
Can’t you tell me? — you will try. Uncle Joseph— I am sure 
you will try. Only help me so far, and I think I can an 
swer for the rest. If they keep the keys where they used 
to keep them in my time, ten minutes" to myself is all I 
should want — ten minutes, only ten short minutes, to make 
the end of my life easier to me than the beginning has 
been; to-help me to grow old quietly and resignedly, if it is 
God’s will that I should live out my years. Oh, how 
happy people must be who have all the courage they want ; 
who are quick and clever, and have their wits about them! 
You are readier than I am, uncle; you said last night that 
you would think about how to advise me for the best — what 
did your thoughts end in? You will make me so much 
easier if you will only tell me that.” 

Uncle Joseph nodded assentingly, assumed a look of the 
profoundest gravity, and slowly laid his forefinger along 
the side of his nose. 

” What did I promise you last night?” he said. “Was 
it not to take my pipe, and ask him to make me think? 
Good, I smoke three pipes, and think three thoughts. My 
first thought is— Wait! My second thought is again— 
Wait! My third thought is yet come once more — Wait! 
You say you will be easy, Sarah, if I tell you the end of 
all my thoughts. Good, I have told you. There is the 
end— you are easy— it is all right.” 

“Wait?” repeated Sarah, with a look of bewilderment 
which suggested anything rather than a mind at ease. ‘ ‘ I 
am afraid, uncle, I don’t quite understand. Wait for 
what? Wait till when?” 

“ Wait till we arrive at the house, to be sure! Wait till 
we are got outside the door ; then is time enough to think 
how we are to get in,” said Uncle Joseph, with an air of 
conviction. “ You understand now?” 

“Yes — at least T understand better than I did. But 
there is still another difficulty left. Uncle, I mdst tell you 
more than I intended ever to tell anybody — I must tell you 
that the letter is locked up.” 

“ Locked up in a room?” 

“Worse than that — locked up in something inside the 
room. The key that opens the door — even if I get it— the 
key that opens the door of the room is not all I want. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


137 


There is another key besides that, a little key ” She 

stopped, with a confused, startled look. 

“ A little key that you have lost?” asked Uncle Joseph. 

“I threw it down the well in the village on the morning 
when I made my escape from Porthgenna. Oh, if I had 
only kept it about me ! If it had only crossed my mind 
that 1 might want it again !’ ’ 

“Well, well; there is no help for that now. Tell me, 
Sarah, what the something is which the letter is hidden 
in. ” 

“ I am afraid of the very walls hearing me.” 

* ‘ What nonsense ! Come ! whisper it to me. ’ ’ 

She looked all round her distrustfully, and then whis- 
pered into the old man’s ear. He listened eagerly, and 
laughed when she was silent again. “Bah!” he cried. 
“If that is all, make yourself happy. As you wicked En- 
glish people say, it is as easy as lying. Why, my child, you 
can burst him open for yourself. ’ ’ 

“ Burst it open? How?” 

Uncle Joseph went to the window- seat, which was made 
on the old-fashioned plan, to serve the purpose of a chest 
as well as a seat. He opened the lid, searched among some 
tools which -lay in the receptacle beneath, and took out a 
chisel. “See,’’ he said, demonstrating on the top of the 
window-seat the use to which the tool was to be put. 
“ You push him in so — crick! Then you pull him up so — 
crack! It is the business of one little moment— crick I 
crack ! — and the lock is done for. Take the chisel yourself, 
wrap him up in that bit of stout paper there, and put him 
in your pocket. What are you waiting for? Do you want 
me to show you again, or do you think you can do it now 
for yourself?” 

“I should like you to show me again, Uncle Joseph, 
but not now — not till we have got to the end ^ of our 
journey.” 

“ Good. Then I may finish my packing up, and go ask 
about the coach. First and foremost, Mozart must put on 
his great coat, and travel with us.” He took up the mu- 
sical box, and placed it carefully in a leather case, which 
he slung hy a strap over one shoulder. “Next, there is 
my pipe, the tobacco to feed him with, and the matches to 
set him alight. Last, here is }ny old German knapsack, 
which I packed last night. See 1 here is shirt, nightcap, 
comb, pocket-handkerchief, sock. Say I am an emperor, 
and what do I want more than that? Good. I have Mo- 
zart, I have the pipe, I have the knapsack. I have— stop 1 
stop ! there is the old leather purse, he must not be forgot- 
ten. Look! here he is. Listen! Ting, ting, ting! He 
jingles; he has in his inside money. Aha, my friend, my 


188 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


good Leather, you shall be lighter and leaner before you 
come home again. So, so — it is all complete; we are 
ready for the march now, from our tops to our toes. 
Good-bye, Sarah, my child, for a little half-hour; you 
shall wait here and amuse yourself while I go ask for the 
coach.” 

When Uncle Joseph came back, he brought his niece in- 
formation that a coach would pass through Truro in an 
hour’s time, which would set them down at a stage not 
more than five or six miles distant from the regular post- 
town of Porthgenna. The only direct conveyance to the 
post-town was a night-coach which carried the letter-bags, 
and which stopped to change horses at Truro at the very 
inconvenient hour of two o’clock in the morning. Being 
of opinion that to travel at bed-time was to make a toil of 
a pleasure, Uncle Joseph recommended taking places in the 
day -coach, and hiring any conveyance that could be after- 
ward obtained to carry his niece and himself on to the 
post-town. By this arrangement they would not only se- 
cure their own comfort, but gain the additional advantage 
of losing as little time as possible at Truro before proceed- 
ing on their journey to Porthgenna. 

The plan thus proposed Avas the plan followed. When 
the coach stopped to change horses. Uncle Joseph and his 
niece were waiting to take their places by it. They found 
all the inside seats but one disengaged, were set down two 
hours afterward at the stage that was nearest to the des- 
tination for which they were bound, hired a pony chaise 
there and reached the post-town between one and two 
o’clock in the afternoon. 

Dismissing their conveyance at the inn, from motives of 
caution which were urged by Sarah, they set forth to walk 
across Uie moor to Porthgenna. On their way out of the 
town tliey met the postman returning from his morning's 
delivery of letters in the surrounding district. His bag 
had been much heavier and his walk much longer that 
morning than usual. Among the extra letters that had 
taken him out of his ordinary course was one addressed 
to the housekeeper at Porthgenna Tower, which he had 
delivered early in the morning, when he first started on 
his rounds. 

Throughout the whole journey, Uncle Joseph had not 
made a single reference to the object for which it had been 
undertaken. Possessing a child’s simplicity of nature, he 
was also endowed with a child’s elasticity of disposition. 
The doubts and forebodings which troubled his niece’s 
spirit, and kept her silent and thoughtful and sad, cast no 
darkening shadow over the natural sunshine of his mind. 
If be had really been traveling for pleasure alone, he could 


THE DEAD SECRET 


139 


not have enjoyed more thoroughly than he did the differ- 
ent sights and events of the journey. 

All the happiness which the passing minute had to give 
him he took as readily and gratefully as if there was no 
uncertainty in the future, no doubt, difficulty, or "danger 
lying in wait for him at the journey's end. Before he had 
been half an hour in the coach he had begun to tell the 
third inside passenger — a rigid old lady, who stared at him 
in speechless amazement — the whole history of the musical 
box, ending the narrative by setting it playing, in defiance 
of ail the noise that the rolling wheels could make. When 
they left the coach, he was just as sociable afterward with 
the driver of the chaise, vaunting the superiority of German 
beer over Cornish cider, and making his remarks upon the 
objects which they passed on the road with the pleasantest 
familiarity, and the heartiest enjoyment of his own jokes. 
It was not, till he and Sarah were well out of the little 
town, and away by themselves on the great moor which 
stretched beyond it, that his manner altered, and his talk 
ceased altogether. After walking on in silence for some 
little time, with his niece’s arm in his, he suddenly stopped, 
looked her earnestly and kindly in the face, and laid his 
hand on hers. 

‘‘There is yet one thing more I want to ask you, my 
child,” he said. “ The journey has put it out of my head, 
but it has been in my heart all the time. When we leave 
this place of Porthgenna, and get back to my house, you 
will not go away? you will not leave uncle Joseph again? 
Are you in service still, Sarah? Are you not your own 
master yet?” 

“I was in service a few days since,” she answered, “but 
I am free now. I have lost my place.” 

“Aha! You have lost your place; and why?” 

“ Because I would not hear an innocent person unjustly 
blamed. Because — — ” 

She checked herself. But the few words she had said 
were spoken with such a suddenly heightened color, and 
with such an extraordinary emphasis and resolution of 
tone, that the old man opened his eyes as widely as possi- 
ble, and looked at his niece in undisguised astonishment. 

“So! so! so!” he exclaimed. “What! You have had 
a quarrel, Sarah?” 

“Hush! Don’t ask me any more questions now,’^ she 
pleaded, earnestly. “ I am too anxious and too frightened 
to answer. Uncle! this is Porthgenna Moor — this is the 
road I passed over, sixteen years ago, when I ran away to 
you. Oh ! let us get on — pray let us get on! I can’t think 
of anything now but the house we are so near, and the risk 
we are going to run.” 


140 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


They went on quickly, in silence. Half an hour’s rapid 
walking brought them to the highest elevation on the 
moor, and gave the whole western prospect grandly to 
their view. 

There, below them, was the dark, lonesome, spacious 
structure of Porthgenna Tower, with the sunlight already 
stealing round toward the windows of the west front! 
There was the path winding away to it gracefully over the 
brown moor, in curves of dazzling white I There, lower 
down, w’as the solitary old church, with the peaceful 
burial-ground nestling by its side ! There, lower still, were 
the little scattered roofs of the fishermen’s cottages! And 
there beyond all, was the changeless glory of the sea, with 
its old seething lines of white foam, with the old winding 
margin of its yellow shores! Sixteen long years — such 
years of sorrow, such years of suffering, such years of 
change, counted by the pulses of the living heart ! — had 
passed over the dead tr^,nquillity of Porthgenna, and had 
altered it as little as if they had all been contained within 
the lapse of a single day ! 

The moments when the spirit within us is most deeply 
stirred are almost invariably the moments also when its 
outward manifestations are hardest to detect. Our own 
thoughts rise above us ; our own feelings lie deeper than we 
can reach. How seldom words can help us, when their 
help is most wanted ! How often our tears are dried up 
when we most long for them to relieve us ! Was there ever 
a strong emotion in this world that could adequately ex- 
press its own strength? What third person, brought face 
to face with the old man and his niece, as they now stood 
together on the moor, would have suspected, to look at 
them, that the one was contemplating the landscape with 
nothing more than a stranger’s curiosity, and that the 
other was viewing it through the recollections of half a life- 
time? The eyes of both were dry, the tongues of both were 
silent, the faces of both were set with equal attention to- 
ward the prospect. Even between themselves there was 
no real sympathy, no intelligible appeal from one spirit to 
the other. The old man’s quiet admiration of the view 
was not more briefly and readily expressed, when they 
moved forward and spoke to each other, than were the cus- 
tomary phrases of assent by which his niece replied to the 
little that he said. How many moments there are in this 
mortal life, when, with all our boasted powers of speech, 
the words of our vocabulary treacherously fade out, and 
the page presents nothing to us but the sight of a perfect 
blank: ! 

Slowly descending the slope of the moor, the uncle and 
niece drew nearer and nearer to Porthgenna Tower. They 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


141 


were within a quarter of an hour’s walk of the house when 
Sarah stopped at a place where a second path intersected 
the main foot-track ^hich they had hitherto been follow- 
ing. On the left hand, as they now stood, the cross-path 
ran on until it was lost to the eye in the expanse of the 
moor. On the right hand it led straight to the church. 

“ What do we stop for now !” asked Uncle Joseph, look- 
ing first in one direction and then in the other. 

“Would you mind waiting for me here a little while, 
uncle? I can’t* pass the church path” — (she paused, in 
some trouble how to express herself) — “without wishing 
(as I don’t know what may happen after we get to the 

house), without wishing to see — to look at something ” 

She stopped again, and turned her face wistfully toward 
the church. The tears, which had never wetted her eyes 
at the first view of Porthgenna, were beginning to rise" in 
them now. 

Uncle Joseph’s natural delicacy warned him that it 
would be best to abstain from asking her for any explana- 
tions. 

“ Go you where you like to see what you like,” he said, 
patting her on the shoulder. “ I shall stop here to make 
myself happy with my pipe ; and Mozart shall come out of 
his cage and sing a little in this fine fresh air.” He un- 
slung the leather case from his shoulder while he spoke, 
took out the musical box, and set it ringing its tiny peal to 
the second of the two airs which it was constructed to play 
— the minuet in “ Don Giovanni.” Sarah left him looking 
about carefully, not for a seat for himself, but for a smooth 
bit of rock to place the box upon. When he had found 
this, he lighted his pipe, and sat down to his music and his 
smoking, like an epicure to a good dinner. “Aha!” he 
exclaimed to himself, looking round as composedly at the 
wild prospect on all sides of him as if he was still in his 
own little parlor at Truro — “Aha! Here is a fine big 
music-room, my friend Mozart, for you to sing in! Ouf ! 
there is wind enough in this place to blow your pretty 
dance- tune out to sea, and give the sailor-people a taste of 
it as they roll about in their ships.” 

Meanvvhile Sarah walked on rapidly toward the church, 
and entered the inclosure of the little burial-ground. 
Toward that same part af it to which she had directed her 
steps on the morning of her mistress’ death, she now 
turned her face again, after a lapse of sixteen years. 
Here, at least, the march of time had left its palpable 
track— its footprints whose marks were graves. How 
many a little spot of ground, empty when she last saw it, 
had its mound and its headstone now! The one grave 
that she had come to see— the grave which had stood 


142 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


apart in the bygone days, had companion graves on 
the right hand" and on the left. Bhe could not have 
singled it out but for the weather stains on the headstone, 
which told of storm and rain over it, that had not passed 
over the rest. The mound was still kept in shape ; but the 
grass grew long, and waved a dreary welcome to her as 
the wind swept through it. She knelt down by the stone, 
and tried to read the inscription. The black paint which 
had once made the carved words distinct was all flaj^ed off 
from them now. To any other eyes but hers the very 
name of the dead man would have been hard to trace. 
She sighed heavily as she followed the letters of the 
inscription mechanically, one by one, with her finger : 

SACRED TO THE MEMORY 
OF 

HUGH POLWHEAL, 

AGED 26 YEARS. 

HE MET WITH HIS DEATH 
THROUGH THE FALL OF A ROOK 
IN 

PORTHGENNA MINE, 

DECEMBER 17TH, 1 8 2 eS . 

Her hand lingered over the letters after it had followed 
them to the last line, and she bent forward and pressed her 
lips on the stone. 

“Better so!” she said to herself, as she rose from her 
knees, and looked down at the inscription for the last time. 
“ Better it should fade out so! Fewer strangers’ eyes will 
see it; fewer strangers’ feet will follow where mine have 
been — he will lie all the quieter in the place of his rest !” 

She brushed the tears from her eyes, and gathered a few 
blades of grass from the grave — then left the churchyard. 
Outside the hedge that surrounded the inclosure she stopped 
for a moment, and drew from the bosom of her dress the 
little book of Wesley’s Hymns which she had taken with 
her from the desk in her bedroom on the morning of her 
flight f rom Porthgenna. The withered remains of the grass 
that she had plucked from the grave sixteen years ago lay 
between the pages still. She added to them the fresh frag- 
ments that she had just gathered, replaced the book in the 
bosom of her dress, and hastened back over the moor to 
the spot where the old man was waiting for her. 

She found him packing up the musical box again in its 
leather case. “A good wind,” he said, holding up the 
palm of his hand to the fresh breeze that was sweeping 


THE DEAD SEODET, 


m 

over the moor— “ a very good wind, indeed, if you take 
him by himself— but a bitter bad wind if you take him 
with Mozart. He blows off the tune as if it was the hat 
on my head. You come back, my child, just at the nick 
of time — just when my pipe is done, and Mozart is ready 
to travel along the road once more. Ah, have you got the 
crying look in your eyes again, Sarah? What have you 
met with to make you cry ? So ! so ! I see — the fewer ques- 
tions I ask just now, the better you will like me. Good. I 
have done. No! I have a last question yet. What are 
we standing here for? why do we not go on?” 

“ Yes, yes; you are right. Uncle Joseph; let us go on at 
once. I shall lose all the little courage I have if we stay 
here much longer looking at the house.” 

They proceeded down the path without another moment 
of delay. When they had reached the end of it, they stood 
opposite the eastern boundary wall of Porthgenna Tower. 
The principal entrance to the house, which had been very 
rarely used of late j^ears, was in the west front, and was 
approached by a terrace road that overlooked the sea. The 
smaller entrance, which was generally used, was situated 
on the south side of the building, and led through the 
servants’ offices to the great hall and the west staircase. 
Sarah’s old experience of Porthgenna guided her instinct- 
ively toward this part of the house. She led her compan 
ion on until they gained the southern angle of the east 
wall— then stopped and looked about her. Since they had 
passed the postman and had entered on the moor, they^ 
had not set eyes on a living creature; and still, though they 
were now under the very walls of Porthgenna, neither 
man, woman, nor child— not even a domestic animal— ap- 
peared in view. 

“ It is very lonely here,” said Sarah, looking round her 
distrustfully ; “much lonelier than it used to be.” 

“ Is it only to tell me what I can see for myself that you 
are stopping now?” asked Uncle Joseph, whose inveterate 
cheerfulness would have been proof against the solitude of 
Sahara itself. 

“No, no!” she answered, in a quick, anxious whisper. 
“,But the bell we must ring at is so close — only round 
there— I should like to know what we are to say when we 
come face to face with the servant. You told me it was 
time enough to think about that when we were at the door. 
Uncle ! we are all but at the door now. What shall we 
do?” 

“The first thing to do,” said Uncle Joseph, shrugging 
his shoulders, “ is surely to ring. ” 

“Yes— but when the servant comes, what are we to 
say?” 


144 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


“Say?” repeated Uncle Joseph, knitting his eyebrows 
quite fiercely with the effort of thinking, and rapping his 
forehead with his forefinger just under his hat— “Say? 
Stop, stop, stop, stop! Ah, I have got it! I know! Make 
yourself quite easy, Sarah. The moment the door is 
opened, all the speaking to the servant shall be done by 
me.” 

“ Oh, how you relieve me! What shall you say?” 

“Say? This— ‘ How do you do? We have come to see 
the house.’” 

When he had disclosed that remarkable expedient for 
effecting an entrance into Porthgenna Tower, he spread out 
both his hands interrogatively, drew back several paces 
from his niece, and looked at her with the serenely self-satis- 
fied air of a man who had leaped, at one mental bound, 
from a doubt to a discovery. Sarah gazed at him in as- 
tonishment. The expression of absolute conviction on his 
face staggered her. The poorest of all the poor excuses for 
gaining admission into the house which she herself had 
thought of, and had i*ejected, during the previous night, 
seemed like the very perfection of artifice by comparison 
with such a childishly simple expedient as that suggested by 
Uncle Joseph. And yet there he stood, apparently quite 
convinced that he had hit on the means of smoothing away 
all obstacles at once. Not knowing what to say, not be- 
lieving sufficiently in the validity of her own doubts to 
venture on openly e xpressing an opinion either one way or 
the other, she took the last refuge that was now left open 
to her— she endeavored to gain time. 

“ It is very, very good of you, uncle, to take all the diffi- 
culty of speaking to the servant on your own shoulders,” 
she said ; the hidden despondency at her heart expressing 
itself, in spite of her, in the faintness of her voice and the 
forlorn perplexity of her eyes. ‘ ‘ But would you mind 
waiting a little before we ring at the door, and walking up 
and down for a few minutes by the side of this wall, where 
nobody is likely to see us ! I want to get a little more time 
to prepare myself for the trial that I have to go through ; 
and— and in case the servant makes any difficulties about 
letting us in — I mean difficulties that we cannot just now 
anticipate — would it not be as well to think of something 
else to say at the door. Perhaps, if you were to consider 
again ” 

“ There is not the least need,” interposed Uncle Joseph. 
“I have only to speak to the servant, and— crick! crack! 
you will see that we shall got in. But I will walk up and 
down as long as you please. There is no reason, because 
I have done all my thinking in one moment, that you 
should have done all your thinking in one moment too. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


145 


No, no, no — no reason at all.” Saying those words with a 
patronizing air and a self-satisfied smile, which would have 
been irresistibly comical under any less critical circum- 
stances, the old man again offered his arm to his niece, and 
led her back over the broken ground that lay under the 
eastern wall of Porthgenna Tower. 

♦ % ♦ * 5je !|t 

While Sarah was waiting in doubt outside the walls, it 
happened, by a curious coincidence, that another person, 
vested with the highest domestic authority, was also wait- 
ing in doubt inside the walls. This person was no other 
than the housekeeper of Porthgenna Tower and the cause 
of her perplexity was nothing less than the letter which 
had been delivered by the postman that very morning. 

It was a letter from Mrs. Frankland, which had been 
written after she had held a long conversation with her 
husband and Mr. Orridge, on receiving the last fragments 
of information which the doctor was able to communicate 
in reference to Mrs. Jazeph. 

The housekeeper had read the letter through over and 
over again, and was more puzzled and astonished by it at 
every fresh reading. She was now waiting for the return 
of the steward, Mr. Munder, from his occupations out of 
doors, with the intention of taking his opinion on the sin- 
gular communication which she had received from her 
mistress. 

While Sarah and her uncle were still walking up and 
down outside the eastern wall, Mr. Munder entered the 
housekeeper’s room. He was one of those tall, grave, be- 
nevolent-looking men, with a conical head, a deep voice, a 
slow step, and a heavy manner, who passively contrive to 
get a great reputation for wisdom without the trouble of 
saying or doin^ anything to deserve it. All round the 
Porthgenna neighborhood the steward was popularly 
spoken of as a remarkably sound, sensible man; and the 
housekeeper, although a sharp woman in other matters, in 
this one respect shared to a large extent in the general de- 
lusion. 

“ Good -morning, Mrs. Pentreath,” said Mr. Munder. 
“ Any news to-day?” What a weight of importance his 
deep voice and his impressively slow method of using it, 
gave to those two insignificant sentences ! 

“News, Mr. Munder, that will astonish you,” replied the 
housekeeper. “I have received a letter this morning from 
Mrs. Frankland, which is, without any exception, the most 
mystifying thing of the sort I ever met with. I am told 
to communicate the letter to you; and I have been wait- 
ing the whole morning to hear your opinion of it. Pray 


146 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


sit down, and give me all your attention — for I do posi- 
tively assure you that the letter requires it.” 

Mr. Munder sat down, and became the picture of atten- 
tion immediately — not of ordinary attention, which can be 
wearied, but of judicial attention, which knows no fatigue, 
and is superior alike to the power of dullness and the power 
of time. The housekeeper, without wasting the precious 
minutes— Mr. Munder’s minutes, which ranked next on the 
scale of importance to a prime minister’s! — opened her mis- 
tress’ letter, and, resisting the natural temptation to make 
a few more prefatory remarks on it, immediately favored 
the steward with the first paragraph, in the following 
terms : 

“ Mrs. Pentreath, — You must be tired of receiving let- 
ters from me, fixing a day for the arrival of Mr. Frank- 
land and myself. On this, the third occasion of my writing 
to you about our plans, it will be best, I think, to make no 
third appointment, but merely to say that we shall leave 
West Winston for Porthgenna the moment I can get the 
doctor’s permission to travel.” 

“So far,” remarked Mrs. Pentreath, placing the letter 
on her lap, and smoothing it out rather irritably while she 
spoke—” so far, there is nothing of much consequence. 
The letter certainly seems to me (between ourselves) to be 
written in rather poor language— too much like common 
talking to come up to my idea of what a lady’s style of 
composition ought to be — but that is a matter of opinion. 
1 can’t say, and I should be the last person to wish to say, 
that the beginning of Mrs. Fankland’s letter is not, upon 
the whole, perfectly clear. It is the middle and the end 
that I wish to consult you about, Mr. Munder.” 

“Just so,” said Mr. Munder. Only two words, but more 
meaning iii them than two hundred in the mouth of an 
ordinary man! The housekeeper cleared her throat with 
extraordinary loudness and elaboration, and read on thus: 

“ My principal object in writing these lines is to request, 
by Mr. Frankland’s desire, that you and Mr. Munder will 
endeavor to ascertain, as privately as possible, whether a 
person now traveling in Cornwall — in whom we happen to 
be much interested— has been yet seen in the neighborhood 
of Porthgenna. The person in question is known to us by 
the name of Mrs, Jazeph. She is an elderly woman of 
quiet, lady-like manners, looking nervous and in delicate 
health. She dresses, according to our experience of her, 
with extreme propriety and neatness, and in dark colors. 
Her eyes have a singular expression of timidity, her voice 
is particularly soft and low, and her manner is frequently 
marked by extreme hesitation. I am thus particular in 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


147 


describing her, in case she should not be traveling under 
the name by which we know her. 

“ For reasons which it is not necessary to state, both my 
husband and myself think it probable that, at some former 
period of her life, Mrs. Jazeph may have been connected 
with the Porthgenna neighborhood. Whether this be the 
fact or no, it is indisputably certain that she is familiar 
with the interior of Porthgenna Tower, and that she has 
an interest of some kind, quite incomprehensible to us, in 
the house. Coupling the.se facts with the knowledge we 
^>ave of her being now in Corwall, we think it just within 
ne range of possibility that you or Mr. Munder, or some 
other person in our employment, may meet with her; and 
we are particularly anxious, if she should by any chance 
ask to see the house, not only that you should show her 
over it with perfect readiness and civility, but also that 
you should take private and particular notice oY her con- 
duct from the time when she enters the building to the 
time when she leaves it. Do not let her out of your sight 
for a moment ; and, if possible, pray get some trustworthy 
person to follow her unperceived, and ascertain where she 
goes to after she has quitted the house. It is of the most 
vital importance that these instructions (strange as they 
may seem to you) should be implicitly obeyed to the very 
letter. 

“ I have only room and time to add that we know noth 
ing to the discredit of this person, and that we particularly 
desire you will manage matters with sufficient discretion 
(in case you meet with her) to prevent her from having 
any suspicion that you are acting under orders, or that you 
have any especial interest in watching her movements. 
You will be good enough to communicate this letter to the 
steward, and you are at liberty to repeat the instructions in 
it to any other trustworthy person, if necessary. 

“Yours truly. 

“ Eosamond Frankland.” 

“ P. S.— I have left my room, and the baby is getting on 
charmingly.” 

“There!” said the housekeeper. “Who is to make 
head or tail of that, I should like to know 1 Did you ever, 
in all your experience, Mr. Munder, meet with such a let- 
ter before? Here is a very heavy responsibility laid on 
our shoulders, without one word of explanation. I have 
been puzzling my brains about what their interest in this 
mysterious woman can be the whole morning; and the 
more I think, the less comes of it. What is your opinion, 
Mr. Munder? We ought to do something immediately. 
Is there any course in particular which you feel disposed 


148 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


to point out?” Mr. Munder coughed dubiously, crossed his 
right leg over his left, put his head critically on one side, 
coughed for the second time, and looked at the house- 
keeper. If it had belonged to any other man in the world, 
Mrs. Pentreath would have considered that the face which 
now confronted hers expressed nothing but the most prO' 
found and vacant bewilderment. But it was Mr. Munder’s 
face, and it was only to be looked at with sentiments of 
respectful expectation. 

” I rather think ” began Mr. Munder. 

“Yes?” said the housekeeper, eagerly. 

Before another word could be spoken, the maid- servant 
entered the ]’oom to lay the cloth for Mrs. Pentreath’s dim 
ner. 

“ There, there! never mind now, Betsey,” said the house- 
keeper, impatiently. ‘‘Don’t lay the cloth till I ring for 
you. Mr. Munder and I have something very important 
to talk about, and we can’t be interrupted just yet.” 

She had hardly said the word before an interruption of 
the most unexpected kind happened. The door bell rang. 
This was a very unusual occurrence at Porthgenna Tower. 
The few persons who had any occasion to come to the house 
on domestic business always entered by a small side gate, 
which was left on the latch in the day-time. 

“ Who in the world can that be?” exclaimed Mrs. Pen- 
treath, hastening to the window, which commanded aside 
view of the lower door steps. 

The first object that met her eye when she looked out 
was a lady standing on the lowest step — a lady dressed 
very neatly in quiet, dark colors. 

“Good heavens^ Mr. Munder!” cried the housekeeper, 
hurrying back to the table, and snatching up Mrs. Frank- 
land’s letter, which she had left on it. “There is a- 
stranger waiting at the door at this very moment ! a lady ! 
or, at least, a woman — and dressed neatly, dressed in dark 
colors ! You might knock me down, Mr. Munder, with a 
feather! Stop, Betsey — stop where you are!” 

“I was only going, ma’am, to answer the door,” said 
Betsey, in amazement. 

“Stop where you are,” reiterated Mrs. Pentreath, com- 
posing herself % a great effort. “ I happen to have cer- 
tain reasons, on this particular occasion, for descending out 
of my own place and putting myself into yours. Stand 
out of the way, you staring fool! I am going up- stairs to 
answer that ring at the door myself.” 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


149 


CHAPTER III. 

INSIDE THE HOUSE. 

Mrs. Pentreath’s surprise at seeing a lady through the 
window was doubled by her amazement at seeing a gentle- 
man when she opened the door. Waiting close to the bell- 
handle, after he had rung, instead of rejoining his niece on 
the step. Uncle Joseph stood near enough to the house to 
be put of the range of view from Mrs. Pentreath’s window. 
To the housekeeper's excited imagination, he appeared on 
the threshold with the suddenness of an apparition — the 
apparition of a little rosy- faced old gentleman, smiling, 
bowing, and taking off his hat with a superb flourish of 
politeness, which had something quite superhuman in the 
sweep and the dexterity of it. 

“ How do you do? We have come to see the house, ” 
said Uncle Joseph, trying his infallible expedient for gain- 
ing admission the instant the door was open. 

Mrs. Pentreath was struck speechless. Who was this 
familiar old gentleman with the foreign accent and the 
fantastic bow? and what did he mean by talking to her as 
if she was his intimate friend? Mrs. Frankland’s letter 
said not so much, from beginning to end, as one word 
about him. 

” How do you do? We have come to see the house,” re- 
peated Uncle Joseph, giving his irresistible form of saluta- 
tion the benefit of a second trial. 

” So you said just now, sir,” remarked Mrs. Pentreath, 
recovering self-possession enough to use her tongue in her 
own defense. “Does the lady,” she continued, looking 
down over the old man’s shoulder at the step on which his 
niece was standing—” does the lady wish to see the house 
too?” 

Sarah’s gently spoken reply in the affirmative, short as 
it was, convinced the housekeeper that the woman de- 
scribed in Mrs. Frankland’s letter really and truly stood 
before her. Besides the neat, quiet dress, there was now 
the softly toned voice, and, when she looked up for a mo- 
ment, there were the timid eyes also to identify her by ! 
In relation to this one of the two strangers, Mrs. Pentreath, 
however agitated and surprised she might be, could no 
longer feel any uncertainty about the course she ought to 
adopt. But in' relation to the other visitor, the incompre- 
hensible old foreigner, she was beset by the most bewil- 
dering doubts. Would it be safest to hold to the letter of 
Mrs. Frankland’s instructions, and ask him to wait outside 
while the lady was being shown over the house? or would 
it be best to act on her own responsibility, and to risk giv- 


150 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


ing him admission as well as his companion? This was a 
difficult point to decide, and therefore one which it was 
necessary to submit to the superior sagacity of Mr. Munder. 

“Will you step in for a moment, and wait here while I 
speak to the steward?” said Mrs. Pentreath, pointedly neg- 
lecting to notice the familiar old foreigner, and address- 
ing herself straight through him to the lady on the steps 
below. 

“Thank you very much,” said Uncle Joseph, smiling 
and bowing, impervious to rebuke. “What did I- tell 
you?” he whispered triumphantly to his niece, as she passed 
him on her way into the house. 

Mrs. Pentreath’s first impulse was to go down-stairs at 
once, and speak to Mr. Munder. But a timely recollection 
of that part of Mrs. Frankland’s letter which enjoined her 
not to lose sight of the lady in the quiet dress, brought her 
to a stand-still the next moment. She was the more easily 
recalled to a rememberance of this particular injunction 
by a curious alteration in the conduct of the lady herself, 
who seemed to lose all her diffidence, and to become sur- 
prisingly impatient to lead the way into the interior of the 
house, the moment she had stepped across the threshold. 

“Betsey!’’ cried Mrs. Pentreath, cautiously calling to 
the servant after she had only retired a few paces from the 
visitors— “Betsey I ask Mr. Munder to be so kind as to 
step this way.” 

Mr. Munder presented himself with great deliberation, 
and with a certain lowering dignity in his face. He had 
been accustomed to be treated with" deference, and he was 
not pleased with the housekeeper for unceremoniously leav- 
ing him the moment she heard the ring at the bell, without 
giving him time to pronounce an opinion on. Mrs. Frank- 
land’s letter. Accordingly, Avhen Mrs. Pentreath, in a high 
state of excitement, drew him aside out of hearing, and 
confided to him, in a whisper, the astounding intelligence 
that the lady in whom Mr. and Mrs. Frankland were so 
mysteriously interested was, at that moment, actually 
standing before him in the house, he received her commu- 
nication with an air of the most provoking indifference. It 
was worse still when she proceeded to state her difficulties, 
warily keeping her eye on the two strangers all the while. 
Appeal as respectfully as she might to Mr. Munder’s supe- 
rior wisdom for guidance, he persisted in listening with a 
disparaging frown, and ended by irritably contradicting 
her when she ventured to add, in conclusion, that her own 
ideas inclined her to assume no responsibility, and to beg 
the foreign gentleman to wait outside while the lady, in 
conformity with Mrs. Frankland’s instructions, was being 
shown over the house. 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


151 


“Such may be your opinion, ma’am,” said Mr. Munder, 
severely. ‘ ‘ It is not mine. ’ ’ 

The housekeeper looked aghast. “Perhaps,” she sug- 
gested, deferentially, “ you think that the foreign old gen- 
tleman would be likely to insist on going over the house 
with the lady?” 

“Of course I think so,” said Mr. Munder. (He had 
thought nothing of the sort; his only idea just then being 
the idea of asserting his own supremacy by setting himself 
steadily in opposition to any preconceived arrangements of 
Mrs. Pentreath.) 

“ Then you would take the responsibility of showing them 
both over the house, seeing that they have both come to 
the door together?” asked the housekeeper. 

“Of course I would,” answered the steward, with the 
promptitude of resolution which distinguishes all superior 
men. 

“Well, Mr. Munder, I am always glad to be guided by 
your opinion, and I will be guided by it now,” said Mrs. 
Pentreath. “But, as there will be two people to look after 
—for I would not trust the foreigner out of sight on any 
consideration whatever— I must really beg you to share the 
trouble of showing them over the house along with me. I 
am so excited and nervous that I don’t feel as if I had all 
my wits about me— I never was placed in such a position 
as this before — I am in the midst of mysteries that I don’t 
understand— and, in short, if I can’t count on your assist- 
ance, I won’t answer for it .that I shall not make some mis- 
take. I should be very sorry to make a mistake, not only 

on my own account, but ” Here the housekeeper 

stopped, and looked hard at Mr. Munder. 

“Go on, ma’am,” said Mr. Munder, with cruel compos- 
ure. 

“Not only on my own account,” resumed Mrs. Pen- 
treath, demurely, “but on yours; for Mrs. Frankland’s 
letter certainly casts the responsibility of conducting this 
delicate business on your shoulders as well as on mine.” 

Mr. Munder recoiled a few steps, turned red, opened his 
lips indignantly, hesitated, and closed them again. He was 
fairly caught in a trap of his own setting. He could not 
retreat from the responsibility of directing the housekeep- 
er’s conduct, the moment after he had voluntarily assumed 
it; and he could not deny that Mrs. Frankland’s letter posi- 
tively end repeatedly referred to him by name. There was 
only one way of getting out of the difficulty Avith dignity, 
and Mr. Munder unblush ingly took that way the moment 
he had recovered self-possession enough to collect himself 
for the effort. 

“I am perfectly amazed, Mrs. Pentreath,” he began, 


152 


THE DEAD SECRET 




with the gravest dignity. “Yes, I repeat, I am perfectly 
amazed that you should think me capable of leaving you to 
go over the house alone, under such remarkable circum- 
stances as those we are now placed in. No, ma'am! what- 
ever my other faults may be, shrinking from my share of 
responsibility is not one of them. I don’t require to be re- 
minded of Mrs. Frankland’s letter; and— no!— I don’t re- 
quire any apologies. I am quite ready, ma’am — quite 
ready to show the way up-stairs whenever you are.” 

“ The sooner the better, Mr. Munder — for there is that 
audacious old foreigner actually chattering to Betsey now, 
as if he had known her all his life!” 

The assertion was quite true. Uncle Joseph was exercis- 
ing his gift of familiarity on the maid-servant (who had 
lingered to stare at the strangers, instead of going back to 
the kitchen), just as he had already exercised it on the old 
lady passenger in the stage-coach, and on the driver of the 
pony- chaise which took his niece and himself to the post- 
town of Porthgenna. While the housekeeper and the 
steward were holding their private conference, he was 
keeping Betsey in ecstasies of suppressed giggUng by the 
odd questions that he asked about the house, and about 
how she got on with her work in it. His inquiries had 
naturally led from the south side of the building, by which 
he and his companion had entered, to the west side, 
which they were shortly to explore ; and thence round to 
‘ the north side, which was forbidden ground to everybody 
in the house. When Mrs. Pentreath came forward with 
the steward, she overheard this exchange of question and 
answer passing between the foreigner and the maid: 

“But tell me, Betzee, my dear,” said Uncle Joseph. 

Why does nobody ever go into these moldy old rooms?” 

‘ ‘ Because there’ s a ghost in them, ’ ’ answered Betsey, 
with a burst of laughter, as if a series of haunted rooms 
and a series of excellent jokes meant precisely the same 
thing. 

“ Hold your tongue directly, and go back to the kitchen, ” 
cried Mrs. Pentreath, indignantly. ‘ ‘ The ignorant people 
about here,” she continued, still pointedly overlooking 
Uncle Joseph, and addressing herself only to Sarah, “tell 
absurd stories about some old rooms on the unrepaired 
side of the house, which have not been inhabited for more 
than half a century past — absurd stories about a ghost; 
and my servant is foolish enough to believe them.” 

“ No, Pm not,” said Betsey, retiring, under protest, to 
the lower regions. “ I don’t believe a word about the 
ghost— at least not in the day-time.” A,dding that im- 
portant saving clause in a whisper, Betsey unwillingly with- 
drew from the scene, 




THE DEAD SECRET, 158 

Mrs. Pentreatli observed, with some surprise, that the 
mysterious lady in the quiet dress turned very pale at the 
mention of the ghost story, and made no remark on it 
whatever. While she was still wondering what this meant, 
Mr. M under emerged into dignified prominence, and loftily 
addressed himself, not to Uncle Joseph, and not to Sarah, 
but to the empty air between them. 

“ If you wish to see the house,” he said, “ you will have 
the goodness to follow me. ” 

With those words, Mr. Munder turned solemnly into the 
passage that led to the foot of the west staircase, walking 
with that peculiar, slow strut in which all serious-minded 
English people indulge when they go out to take a little 
e. zeroise on Sunday. Tlie housekeeper, adapting her pace 
with feminine pliancy to the pace of the steward, walked 
the national Sabbatarian Polonaise by his side, as if she 
was out with him for a mouthful of fresh air between the 
services. 

“As I am a living sinner, this going over the house is 
like going to a funeral !” whispered Uncle Joseph to his 
niece. He drew her arm into his, and felt, as he did so, 
that she was trembling. 

“ What is the matter?” he asked, under his breath. 

“Uncle! there is something unnatural about the readi- 
ness of these people to show us over the house,” was the 
faintly whispered answer. ‘ ‘ What were they talking about 
just now, out of our hearing? Why did that woman keep 
her eyes fixed so constantly on me?” 

Before the old man could answer, the housekeeper looked 
round, and begged, with the severest emphasis, that they 
would be good enough to follow. In less than another 
minute they were all standing at the foot of the west 
staircase. 

“Aha!” cried Uncle Joseph, as easy and talkative as 
ever, even in the presence of Mr. Munder himself. “ A fine 
big house, and a very good staircase. ” 

“We are not accustomed to hear either the house or the 
staircase spoken of in these terms, sir,” said Mr. Munder, 
resolving to nip the foreigner’s familiarity in the bud. 
“ The Guide to West Cornwall, which you would have done 
well to make yourself acquainted with before you came 
here, describes Porthgenna Tower as a Mansion, and uses 
the word Spacious in speaking of the west staircase. I 
regret to find, sir, that you have not consulted the Guide- 
book to West Cornwall.” 

“ And why?” rejoined the unabashed German. “ What 
do I want with a Dook, when I have got you for my guide? 
Ah, dear sir, but you are not just to yourself ! Is not a 
living guide like you, who talks and walks about, better 


154 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


for me than dead leaves, of print and paper ? Ah, no, no! 
T shall not hear another word—I shall not hear you do any 
more injustice to yourself.” Here Uncle Joseph made 
another fantastic bow, looked up smiling into the steward’s 
face, and shook his head several times with an air of 
friendl}^ reproach. 

Mr. Munder felt paralyzed. He could not have been 
treated with more ■ ease and indifferent familiarity if this 
obscure foreign stranger had been an English duke. He 
had often heard of the climax of audacity ; and here it was 
visibly embodied in one small, elderly individual, who did 
not rise quite five feet from the ground he stood on! 

While the steward was swelling with a sense of injury 
too large for utterance, the hotisekeeper, followed by Sarah, 
was slowly ascending the stairs. Uncle Joseph, seeing 
them go up, hastened to join his niece, and Mr. Munder, 
after waiting a little while on the mat to recover himself, 
followed the audacious foreigner with the intention of 
watching his conduct narrowly, and chastising his insolence 
at the first opportunity with stinging words of rebuke. 

The procession up the stairs thus formed was not, how- 
ever, closed by the steward; it was further adorned and 
completed by Betsey, the servant-maid, who stole out of 
the kitchen to follow the strange visitors over the house, as 
closely as she could without attracting the notice of Mrs. 
Pentreath. Betsey had her share of natural human curi- 
osity and love of change. No such event as the arrival of 
strangers had ever before enlivened the dreary monotony 
of Porthgenna Tower within her experience; and she was 
resolved not to stay alone in the kitchen while there was a 
chance of hearing a stray word of the conversation, or 
catching a chance glimpse of the proceedings among the 
company up- stairs. 

In the meantime the housekeeper had led the way as far 
as the first-floor landing, on either side of which the prin- 
cipal rooms in the west front were situated. Sharpened by 
fear and suspicion, Sarah’s eyes immediately detected the 
repairs which had been effected in the balusters and stairs 
of the second flight. 

“ You have had workmen in the house?” she said quickly 
to Mrs. Pentreath. 

“You mean on the stairs?” returned the housekeeper. 
“Yes, we have had workmen there.” 

“ And nowhere else?” 

‘ ‘ No. But they are wanted in other places badly enough. 
Even here, on the best side of the house, half the bedrooms 
upstairs are hardly fit to sleep in. They were anything 
but comfortable, as I have heard, even in the late Mrs. 
Trever ton’s time; and since she died- — ” 


THE DEAD SECHET. 


155 


The housekeeper stopped, with a frown and a look of 
surprise. The lady in the quiet dress, instead of sustaining 
the reputation for good manners which had been cod f erred 
on her in Mrs. Fraukland’s letter, was guilty of the unpar- 
donable discourtesy of turning away from Mrs. Pen treat h 
before she had done speaking. Determined not to allow 
herself to be impertinently silenced in that way, she coldly 
and distinctly repeated her last words : 

‘ ‘ And since Mrs. Treverton died ’ ’ 

She was interrupted for the second time. The strange 
lady, turning quickly round again, confronted her with a 
ver}^ pale face and a very eager look, and asked, in the 
most abrupt manner, an utterly irrelevant question ; 

“Tell me about that ghost story,” she said. “Do they 
say it is the ghost of a man or of a woman?” 

“I was speaking of the late Mrs. Treverton,” said the 
housekeeper, in her severest tones of reproof, “and not of 
the ghost story about the north rooms. You would have 
known that, if you had done me the favor to listen to what 
I said.” 

“I beg your pardon; I beg your pardon a thousand 
times for seeming inattentive ! It struck me just then — or, 
at least, I wanted to know ” 

“If you care to know about anything so absurd,” said 
Mrs. Pentreath, mollified by the evident sincerity of the 
apology that had been offered to her, ‘ ‘ the ghost, accord- 
ing to the story, is the ghost of a woman. ” # 

The strange lady’s face grew whiter than ever; and she 
turned away once more to the open window on the land- 
ing. 

“ How hot it is!” she said, putting her head out into the 
air. 

“Hot, with a northeast wind!” exclaimed Mrs. Pen- 
treath, in amazement. 

Here Uncle Joseph came forward with a polite request to 
know when they were going to look over the rooms. For 
the last few minutes he had been asking all sorts of ques- 
tions of Mr. Munder; and, having received no answers 
which were not of the shortest and most ungracious kind, 
had given up talking to the steward in despair. 

Mrs. Pentreath prepared to lead the way into the break- 
fast-room, library, and drawing-room. All three com- 
municated with each other, and each room had a second 
door opening on a long passage, the entrance to which was 
on the right-hand side of the first-floor landing. Before 
leading the way into these rooms, the housekeeper touched 
Sarah on the shoulder to intimate that it was time to be 
moving on. 

“ As for the ghost-story,” resumed Mrs. Pentreath, while 


156 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


she opened the breakfast-room door, ‘ ‘ you must apply to 
the ignorant people who believe in it, if you want to liear 
it all told. Whether the ghost is an old ghost or a new 
ghost, and why she is supposed to walk, is more than I can 
tell you.” In spite of the housekeeper’s affectation of in- 
difference toward the popular superstition, she had heard 
enough of the ghost-story to frighten her, though she 
would not confess it. Inside the house, or outside the 
house, nobod}^ much less willing to venture into the north 
rooms alone could in real truth have been found than Mrs. 
Pentreath herself. 

While the housekeeper was drawing up the blinds in the 
breakfast-parlor, and while Mr. Munder was opening the 
door that led out of it into the library, Uncle Joseph stole 
to his niece’s side, and spoke a few words of encourage- 
ment to her in his quaint, kindly way. 

” Courage !” he whispered. ” Keep your wits about you, 
Sarah, and catch your little opportunity whenever you 
can.” 

“My thoughts— my thoughts!” she answered, in the 
same low key. “This house rouses them all against me. 
Oh, why did I ever venture into it again!” 

“You had better look at the view from the window now, ” 
said Mrs. Pentreath, after she had drawn up the blind; “it 
is very much admired.” 

While affairs were in this stage of progress on the first 
floor of the house, Betsey, who had been hitherto stealing 
up Dy a stair at a time from the hall, and listening with 
all her ears in the intervals of the ascent, finding that no 
sound of voices now reached her, bethought herself of re- 
turning to the kitchen again, and of looking after the house- 
keeper’s dinner, which was being kept* warm by the fire. 
She descended to the lower regions, wondering what part 
of the house the strangers would *want to see next, and 
puzzling her brains to find out some excuse for attaching 
herself to the exploring party. 

After the view from the breakfast-room window had 
been duly contemplated, the library was next entered. In 
this room, Mrs. Pentreath, having some leisure to look 
about her, and employing that leisure in observing the con- 
duct of the steward, arrived at the unpleasant conviction 
that Mr. Munder was by no means to be depended on to 
assist in the important business of watching the proceed- 
ings of the two strangers. Doubly stimulated to assert his 
own dignity by the disrespectfully easy manner in which 
he had been treated by Uncle Joseph, the sole object of Mr. 
Munder’s anibition seemed to be to divest himself as com- 
pletely as possible of the character of guide, which the un- 
scrupulous foreigner sought to confer on him. He saun* 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


157 


tered heavily about the rooms, with the air of a casual 
visitor, staring out of window, peeping into books on 
tables, frowning at himself in the chimney -glasses — look- 
ing, in short, anywhere but where he ought to look. The 
housekeeper, exasperated by this affectation of indifference, 
whispered to him irritably to keep his eye on the foreigner, 
as it was quite as much as she could do to look after the 
lady in the quiet dress. 

“Very good; very good,” said Mr. Munder, with sulky 
carelessness. “ And where are you going to next, ma’am, 
after we have been into the drawing-room? Back again, 
through the library, into the breakfast-room? or out at 
once into the passage? Be good enough to settle which, as 
you seem to be in the way of settling everything.” 

‘ ‘ Into the passage, to be sure, ’ ’ answered Mrs. Pentreath, 
“ to show the next three rooms beyond these.” 

Mr. Munder sauntered out of the library, through the 
doorway of communication, into the drawing-room, un- 
locked the door leading into the passage — then, to the great 
disgust of the housekeeper, strolled to the fireplace, and 
looked at himself in the glass over it, just as attentively as 
he had looked at himself in the library -mirror hardly a 
minute before. 

“ This is the west drawing-room,” said Mrs. Pentreath, 
calling to the visitors. “The carving of the stone chim- 
ney-piece,” she added, with the mischievous intention of 
bringing them into the closest proximity to the steward, 

‘ ‘ is considered the finest thing in the whole apartment. ’ ’ 

Driven from the looking-glass by this maneuver, Mr. 
Munder provokingly sauntered to the window and looked 
out. Sarah, still pale and silent — but with a certain un- 
wonted resolution just gathering, as it were, in the lines 
about her lips — stopped thoughtfully by the chimney-piece 
when the housekeeper pointed it out to her. Uncle Joseph, 
looking all round the room in his discursive manner, spied, 
in the furthest corner of it from the door that led into the 
passage, a beautiful maple-wood table and cabinet, of a 
very peculiar pattern. His workmanlike enthusiasm was 
instantly aroused, and he darted across the room to ex- 
amine the make of the cabinet closely. The table beneath 
projected a little way in front of it, and, of all the objectrs 
m the world, what should he see reposing on the flat space 
of the projection but a magnificent musical box at least 
three times the size of his own. 

“Aiel Aie! Aie!” cried Uncle Joseph, in an ascending 
scale of admiration, which ended at the very top of his 
voice. ^ “Open him! set him going! let me hear what he 
plan's!” He stopped for want of words to express his im- 


158 


THE DEAD SECRET, 

patience, and drummed with both hands on the lid of the 
musical box in a burst of uncontrollable enthusiasm. 

‘‘Mr. Munder!” exclaimed the housekeeper, hurrying 
across the room in great indignation. “Why don’t you 
look? why don’t you stop him? He’s breaking open the 
musical box. Be quiet, sir! How dare you touch me?” 

“Set him going! set him going!” reiterated Uncle 
Joseph, dropping Mrs. Pentreath’s arm, which he had 
seized in his agitation. ^ “ Look here! this by my side is a 
music box too! Set him going! Does he play Mozart? He 
is three times bigger than ever I saw ! See I see ! this box 
of mine — this tiny bit of box that looks nothing by the side 
of yours— it was given to my own brother by the king of 
all music composers that ever lived, by the divine Mozart 
himself. Set the big box going, and you shall hear the lit- 
tle baby -box pipe after! Ah, dear and good madame, if 
you love me ” 

‘ ‘ Sir I” exclaimed the housekeeper, reddening with virtu- 
ous indignation to the very roots of her hair. 

“ What do you mean, sir, by addressing such outrageous 
language as that to a respectable female?” inquired Mr. 
Munder, approaching to the rescue. “Do you think we 
want your foreign noises, and your foreign morals, and 
your foreign profanity here? Yes, sir! profanity. Any 
man who calls any human individual, Avhether musical or 
otherwise, ‘divine,’ is a profane man. Who are you, you 
extremely audacious person? Are you an infidel?” 

Before Uncle Joseph could sa}^ a word in vindication of 
his principles, before Mr. Munder could relieve himself of 
any more indignation, they were both startled into mo- 
mentary silence by an exclamation of alarm from the 
housekeeper. 

'“Where is she?” cried Mrs. Pentreath, standing in the 
middle of the drawing-room, and looking with bewildered 
eyes all around her. 

The lady in the quiet dress had vanished. 

She was not in the library, not in the breakfast-room, 
not in the passage outside. After searching in those three 
places, the housekeeper came back to Mr. Munder with a 
look of downright terror in her face, and stood staring at 
him for a moment perfectly helpless and perfectly silent. 
As soon as she recovered herself she turned fiercely on 
Uncle Joseph. 

“Where is she? I insist on knowing what has become 
of her! You cunning, wicked, impudent old man! where 
is she?” cried Mrs. Pentreath, with no color in her cheeks 
and no mercy in her eyes. 

‘ ‘ I suppose she is looking about the house by herself, ' ’ 
said Uncle Joseph. “ We shall find her surely as we take 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


159 


our walks through the other rooms.” Simple as he was, 
the old man had, nevertheless, acuteness enough to per- 
ceive that he had accidentally rendered the very service to 
his niece of which she stood in need. If he had been the 
most artful of mankind, he could have devised no better 
means of diverting Mrs. Pentreath’s attention from Sarah 
to himself than the very means which he had just used 
in perfect innocence, at the very moment when his 
thoughts were furthest away from the real object with 
which he and his niece had entered the house. “So! 
so!” thought Uncle Joseph to himself, “while these two 
angry people were scolding me for nothing, Sarah has 
slipped away to the room where the letter is. Good! 
I have only to wait till she comes back, and to let 
the two angry people go on scolding me as long as they 
please.” 

“What are we to do? Mr. Munder! what on ^earth 
are we to do?” asked the housekeeper. “We can’t waste 
the precious minutes staring at each other here. This 
woman must be found. Stop 1 she asked questions about 
the stairs — she looked up at the second floor the moment 
we got on the landing. Mr. Munder! wait here, and 
don’t let that foreigner out of your sight for a moment. 
Wait here while I run up and look into the second floor 
passage. All the bedroom doors are locked — I defy her 
to hide herself if she has gone up there.” With those 
words, the housekeeper ran out of the drawing-room, 
and breathlessly ascended the second flight of stairs. 

While Mrs. Pentreath was searching on the west side of 
the house, Sarah was hurrying, at the top of her speed, 
along the lonely passages that led to the north rooms. 

Terrified into decisive action by the desperate nature 
of the situation, she had slipped out of the drawing-room 
into the passage the instant she saw Mrs. Pentreath^s back 
turned on her. Without stopping to think, without at- 
tempting to compose herself, she ran down the stairs of the 
first floor, and made straight for the housekeeper’s room. 
She had no excuses ready, if she had found anybody there, 
or if she had met anybody on the way. She had formed 
no plan where to seek for them next, if the keys of the 
north rooms were not hanging in the place where she still 
expected to find them. Her mind was lost in confusion, 
her temples throbbed as if they would burst with the heat 
at her brain. The one blind, wild, headlong purpose of 
getting into the Myrtle Room drove her on, gave unnat- 
ural swiftness to her trembling feet, unnatural strength to 
her shaking hands, unnatural courage to her sinking heart. 

She ran into the housekeeper’s room, without even the 
ordinary caution of waiting for a moment to listen outsidq 


ICO 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


the door. No one was there. One glance at the well-re- 
membered nail in the wall showed her the keys still hang- 
ing to it in a bunch, as they had hung in the long-past time. 
She had them in her possession in a moment; and was 
away again, along the solitary passages that led to the 
north rooms, threading their turnings and windings as if 
she had left them but the day before ; never pausing to 
listen or to look behind her, never slackening her speed till 
she was at the top of the back staircase, and had her hand 
on the locked door that led into the north hall. 

As she turned over the bunch to find the first key that 
was required, she discovered — what her hurry had hitherto 
prevented her from noticing — the numbered labels which 
the builder had methodically attached to all the keys when 
he had been sent to Porthgenna by Mr. Frankland to sur- 
vey the house. At the first sight of them, her searching 
hands paused in their work instantaneously, and she shiv- 
ered all over, as if a sudden chill had struck her. 

If she had been less violently agitated, the discovery of 
the new labels and the suspicions to which the sight of 
them instantly gave rise would, in all probability, have 
checked her further progress. But the confusion of her 
mind was now too great to allow her to piece together even 
the veriest fragments of thoughts. Vaguely conscious of 
a new terror, of a sharpened distrust that doubled and 
trebled the headlong impatience which had driven her on 
thus far, she desperately resumed her search through the 
bunch of keys. 

One of them had no label ; it was larger than the rest — it 
was the key that fitted the door of communication before 
which she stood. She turned it in the rusty lock with a 
strength which, at any other time, she would have been 
utterly incapable of exerting; she opened the door with a 
blow of her hand, which burst it away at one stroke from 
the jambs to which it stuck. Panting for breath, she flew 
across the forsaken north hall, without stopping for one 
second to push the door to behind her. The creeping 
creatures, the noisome house- reptiles that possessed the 
place, crawled away, shadow-like, on either side of her 
toward the walls. She never noticed them, never turned 
away for them. Across the hall, and up the stairs at the 
end of it, she ran, till she gained the open landing at the : 
top— and there she suddenly checked herself in front of 
the first door. 

The first door of the long range of rooms that opened on - 
the landing ; the door that fronted the topmost of the flight t 
of stairs. She stopped ; she looked at it — it was not the . { 
door she had come to open; and yet she could not tear her- \ 
away from it. Scrawled on the panel in white chalk | 


THE DEAD SECRET 


161 


was the figure— “ 1. ” And when she looked down at the 
bunch of keys in her hands, there was the figure “I.” on 
a label, answering to it. 

She tried to think, to follow out any one of all the 
thronging suspicions that beset her to the conclusion at 
which it might point. The effort was useless ; her mind 
was gone ; her bodily senses of seeing and hearing — senses 
which had now become painfully and incomprehensibly 
sharpened — seemed to be the sole relics of intelligence that 
she had left to guide her. She put her hand over her eyes, 
and waited a little so, and then went on slowly along the 
landing, looking at the doors. 

No. “IL,” No. “III.,” No. “IV.” traced on the panels 
in the same white chalk, and answering to the numbered 
labels on the keys, the figures on which were written 
in ink. No. “ IV.” the middle room of the first floor range 
of eight. She stopped there again, trembling from head to 
foot. It was the door of the Myrtle Room. 

Did the chalked numbers stop there? She looked on 
down the landing. No. The four doors remaining were 
regularly numbered on to “ VIII.” 

She came back again to the door of the Myrtle Room, 
sought out the key labeled with the figure “IV.” — hesi- 
tated — and looked back distrustfully over the deserted 
hall. 

The canvases of the old family pictures, which she had 
seen bulging out of their frames in the past time when she 
hid the letter, had, for the most part, rotted away from 
them now, and lay in great black ragged strips on the floor 
of the hall. Islands and continents of damp spread like 
1 he map of some strange region over the lofty vaulted ceil- 
ing. Cobwebs, heavy with dust, hung down in festoons 
from broken cornices. Dirt stains lay on the stone pave- 
ment, like gross reflections of the damp stains on the ceil- 
ing. The broad flight of stairs leading up to the open land- 
ing before the rooms of the first floor had sunk down 
bodily toward one side. The balusters which protected the 
outer edge of the landing were broken away into ragge d 
gaps. The light of day was stained, the air of heaven was 
stilled, the sounds of earth were silenced in the north hall. 

Silenced? Were all sounds silenced? Or was there 
something stirring that just touched the sense of hearing, 
that just deepened the dismal stillness, and no more? 

Sarah listened, keeping her face still set toward the hall 
--listened, and heard a faint sound behind her. Was it 
outside the door on which her back was turned? Or was it 
inside — in the Myrtle Room? 

Inside. With the first conviction of that, all thought, 
all sensation left her. She forgot the suspicious number- 


THE DEAD BECHET. 


m 

ing of the doors ; she became insensible to the lapse of time, 
unconscious of the risk of discovery. All exercise of her 
other faculties was now merged in the exercise of the one 
faculty of listening. 

It was a still, faint, stealthily rustling sound; and it 
moved to and fro at intervals, to and fro softly, now at 
one end, now at the other of the Myrtle Room. There were 
moments when it grew suddenly distinct — other moments 
when it died away in gradations too light to follow. Some- 
times it seemed to sweep over the floor at a bound — some- 
times it crept with slow, continuous rustlings that just 
wavered on the verge of absolute silence. 

Her feet still rooted to the spot on which she stood, 
Sarah turned her head slowly, inch by inch, toward the 
door of the Myrtle Room. A mor^^ent before, while she 
was as yet unconscious of the faint sound moving to and 
fro within it, she had heen drawing her breath heavily and 
quickly. She might have been dead now, her bosom was 
so still, her breathing so noiseless. The same mysterious 
change came over her face which had altered it when the 
darkness began to gather in the little parlor at Truro. The 
same fearful look of inquiry which she had then fixed on 
the vacant corner of the room was in her eyes now, as they 
slowly turned on the door. 

“ Mistress 1” she whispered. “Am I too late? Are you 
there before me f 

The stealthily rustling sound inside paused — renewed it- 
self — died aw a}' again faintly ; away at the lower end of the 
room. 

Her eyes still remained fixed on the Myrtle Room, 
strained, and opened wider and wider— opened as if they 
would look through the very door itself — opened as if they 
were watching for the opaque wood to turn transparent, 
and show what was behind it. 

“ Over the lonesome floor, over the lonesome floor— how 
light it moves!” she whispered again. “Mistress! does 
the black dress I made for you rustle no louder than that!” 
The sound stopped again — then suddenly advanced at one 
stealthy sweep close to the inside of the door. 

If she could have moved at that moment; if she could 
nave looked down to the line of open space between the 
bottom of the door and the flooring below, when the 
faintly rustling sound came nearest to her, she might have 
seen the insignificant cause that produced it lying self be- ■ 
trayed under the door, partly outside, partly inside, in the 5 
shape of a fragment of faded red paper from the waU of 
the Myrtle Room. Time and damp had loosened the paper ^ 
all round the apartment. Two or three yards of it had I 
been torn off by the builder while he was examining the \ 


THE DEAD SECRET 


m 


walls — sometimes in large pieces, sometimes in small 
pieces, just as it happened to come away— and had been 
thrown down by him on the bare, boarded floor, to become 
the sport of tlie wind, whenever it happened to blow 
through the broken panes of glass in the window. If she 
had only moved ! If she had only looked down for one lit- 
tle second of time ! 

She was past moving and past looking ; the paroxysm of 
superstitious horror that possessed her held her still in every 
limb and every feature. She never started, she uttered no 
cry, when the rustling noise came nearest. The one out- 
ward sign which showed how the teiTor of its approach 
shook her to the very soul expressed itself only in the 
changed action of her right hand, in which she still held 
the keys. At the instant when the wdnd wafted the frag- 
ment of paper closer to the door, her Angers lost their 
power of contraction, and became as nerveless and helpless 
as if she had fainted. The heavy bunch of keys slipped 
from her suddenly loosened grasp, dropped at her side on 
the outer edge of the landing, rolled off through a gap in 
the broken baluster, and fell on the stone pavement below, 
Avith a crash which made the sleeping echoes shriek again, 
as if they were sentient beings writhing under the torture 
of sound ! 

The crash of the falling keys, ringing and ringing again 
through the stillness, woke her, as it were, to instant con- 
sciousness of present events and present perils. She started, 
staggered backward, and raised both her hands wildly to 
her head — paused so for a few seconds — then made for the 
top of the stairs with the purpose of descending into the 
hall to recover the keys. 

Before she had advanced three paces the shrill sound of 
a woman’s scream came from the door of communication 
at the opposite end of the hall. The scream was twice re- 
peated at a greater distance off, and was followed by a con- 
fused noise of rapidly advancing voices and footsteps. 

She staggered desperately a few paces further and 
reached the first of the row of doors that opened on the 
landing. There nature sunk exhausted : her knees gave way 
under her — her breath, her sight, her hearing all seemed to 
fail her together at the same instant— and she dropped 
down senseless on the floor at the head of the stairs. 


CHAPTER IV. 

MR. MUNDER ON THE SEAT OP JUDGMENT. 

The murmuring voices and the hurrying footsteps came 
nearer and nearer, and then stopped altogether. After an 
interval of silence, one voice called out loudly: “Sarah! 


m 


THE deae Secret, 


Sarah I where are you?” and the next instant Uncle Jo- 
seph appeared alone in the doorway that led into the north 
hall, looking eagerly all round him. 

At first the prostrate figure on the landing at the head 
of the stairs escaped his view. But the second time he 
looked in that direction the dark dress and the arm that 
lay just over the edge of the top stair caught his eye. 
With a loud cry of terror and recognition he flew across 
the hall and ascended the stairs. Just as he was kneeling 
by Sarah’s side and raising her head on his arm the stew- 
ard, the housekeeper, and the maid, all three crowded to- 
gether after him into the doorway. 

“Water!” shouted the old man, gesticulating at them 
wildly with his disengaged hand. “ She is here— she has 
fallen down — she is in a faint! Water! water!” 

Mr. Munder looked at Mrs. Pentreath, Mrs. Pentreath 
looked at Betsey, Betsey looked at the ground. All three 
stood stock-still; all three seemed equally incapable of 
walking across the hall. If the science of physiognomy 
be not an entire delusion the cause of this amazing una- 
nimity was legibly written in their faces; in other words, 
they all three looked equally afraid of the ghost. 

“ Water, I say ! Water !” reiterated Uncle Joseph, shak- 
ing his fist at them. “ She is in a faint! Are you three 
at the door there, and not one heart of mercy among you? 
Water! water! water! Must I scream myself into fits be- 
fore I can make you hear?” 

“I’ll get the water, ma’am,” said Betsey, “if you or 
Mr. Munder will please to take it from here to the top of 
the stairs.” 

She ran to the kitchen, and came back with a glass of 
water, which she offered with a respectful courtesy first to 
the housekeeper and then to the steward. 

“ How dare you ask us to carry things for you?” said 
Mrs. Pentreath, backing out of the doorway. 

“Yes! how dare you ask us?” added Mr. Munder, back 
ing after Mrs. Pentreath. 

“ Water!” shouted the old man for the third time. He 
drew his niece backward a little so that she could be sup- 
ported against the wall behind her. “ Water! or I tram- 
ple down this dungeon of a place about your ears!” he 
shouted, stamping with impatience and rage. 

“ If you please, sir, are you sure it’s really the lady who 
is up there?” asked Betsey, advancing a few paces tremu- 
lously with the glass of water. 

“Am I sure?” exclaimed Uncle Joseph, descending the 
stairs to meet her. “What fool’s question is this? Who 
should it be?” 


THE DEAD SECRET. 165 

^‘The ghost, sir,” said Betsey, advancing more and more 
slowly. “ The ghost of the north rooms.” 

Uncle Joseph met her a few yards in advance of the foot 
of the stairs, took the glass of water from her with a gest- 
ure of contempt and hastened back to bis niece. As Bet- 
sey turned to effect her retreat the bunch of keys lying on 
the pavement below the landing, caught her eye. After a 
little hesitation she mustered courage enough to pick them 
up, and then ran with them out of the hall as fast as her 
feet could carry her. 

Meanwhile Uncle Joseph was moistening his niece’s lips 
with the water, and sprinkling it over her forehead. After 
awhile her breath began to come and go slowly, in faint 
sighs, the muscles of her face moved a little and she feebly 
opened her eyes. They fixed affrightedly on the old man, 
without any expression of recognition. He made her drink 
a little water, and spoke to her gently, and so brought her 
back at last to herself. Her first words were: Don’t 
leave me.” Her first action, when she was able to move, 
was the action* of crouching closer to him. 

“No fear, my child,” he said, soothingly; “I will keep 
by you. Tell me, Sarah, what has made you faint? What 
has frightened you so?” 

“ Oh, don’t ask me! For God’s sake, don’t ask me!” 

‘ ‘ There, there ! I shall say nothing, then. Another 
mouthful of water? A little mouthful more?” 

“ Help me, uncle: help me to try if I can stand.” 

“ Not yet — not quite yet; patience for a little longer,” 

“ Oh, help me! help me! I want to get away from the 
sight of those doors. If I can only go as far as the bottom 
of the stairs, I shall be better.” 

“So, so,” said Uncle Joseph, assisting her to rise! 
“Wait now, and feel your feet on the ground. Lean on 
me, lean hard, lean heavy. Though I am only a light and 
a little man I am solid as a rock. Have you been into the 
room?” he added, in a whisper. “Have you got the let- 
ter?” 

She sighed bitterly, and laid her head on his shoulder 
with a weary despair. 

“ Why, Sarah! Sarah !” he exclaimed. “ Have you been 
all this time away and not got into the room yet?” 

She raised her head as suddenly as she had laid it down, 
shuddered, and tried feebly to draw him toward the stairs. 
“ I shall never see the Myrtle Eoom again — never, never, 
never more!” she said. “Let ms go; I can walk; I am 
strong now. Uncle Joseph, if you love me, take me away 
from this house; away anywhere, so long as we are in the 
free air and the daylight again ; anywhere, so long as 
are out of sight of Porthgenna Tower.” 


166 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


Elevating his eyebrows in astonishment, but consider- 
ately refraining from asking any more questions. Uncle 
Joseph assisted his niece to descend the stairs. She was 
still so weak that she was obliged to pause on gaining the 
bottom of them to recover her strength. Seeing this and 
feeling, as he led her afterward across the hall, that she 
leaned more and more heavily on his arm at every fresh 
step, the old man, on arriving within speaking distance of 
Mr. Munder and Mrs. Pentreath, asked the housekeeper if 
she possessed any restorative drops which she would allow 
him to administer to his niece. 

Mrs. Pentreath’ s reply in the affirmative, though not 
very graciously spoken, was accompanied by an alacrity of 
action which showed that she was heartily rejoiced to take 
the first fair excuse for returning to the inhabited quarter 
of the house. Muttering something about showing the way 
to the place where the medicine-chest was kept, she imme 
diately retraced her steps along the passage to her own 
room; while Uncle Joseph, disregarding all Sarah’s whis- 
pered assurances that she was well enough td depart with- 
out another moment of delay, followed her silently, leading 
his niece. 

Mr. Munder, shaking his head and looking woefully dis- 
concerted, waited behind to lock the door of communica- 
tion. When he had done this and had given the keys to 
Betsey to carry back to their appointed place, he, in his 
turn, retired from the scene at a pace indecorously ap- 
proaching to something like a run. On getting well away 
from the north hall, however, he regained his self-posses- 
sion wonderfully. He abruptly slackened his pace, collected 
his scattered wits and reflected a little, apparently with 
perfect satisfaction to himself; for when he entered the 
iiousekeeper’s room he had quite recovered his usual com- 
placent solemnity of look and manner. Like the vast ma- 
jority of densely stupid men, he felt intense pleasure in 
hearing himself talk, and he now discerned such an oppor- 
tunity of indulging in that luxury, after the events that had 
just happened in the house, as he seldom enjoyed. There is 
only one kind of speaker who is quite certain never to break 
down under any stress of circumstances — the man whose 
capability of talking does not include any dangerous under- 
lying capacity for knowing what he means. Among this 
favored order of natural orators, Mr. Munder occupied a 
prominent rank— and he was now vindictively resolved to 
exercise his abilities on the two strangers under pretense of 
asking for an explanation of their conduct before he could 
suffer them to quit the house. 

On entering the room he found Uncle Joseph seated with 
his niece at the lower end of it, engaged in dropping some 


THE DEAD SECRET, m 

gal volatile into a glass of water. At the upper end stood 
the houskeeper with an open medicine-chest on the table 
before her. To this part of the room Mr. Munder slowly 
advanced, with a portentous countenance; drew an arm- 
chair up to the table; sat himself down in it, with extreme 
deliberation and care in the manner of settling his coat- 
tails ; and immediately became, to all outward appearance, 
the model of a lord chief justice in plain clothes. 

Mrs. Pentreath, conscious from these preparations that 
something extraordinary was about to liappen, seated her- 
self a little behind the steward. Betsey restored the keys 
to their place on the nail in the wall, and was about to re- 
tire modestly to her proper kitchen sphere when she was 
stopped by Mr. Munder. 

“ Wait, if you please,” said the steward; “I shall have 
occasion to call on you presently, young woman, to make 
a plain statement.” 

Obedient Betsey waited near the door, terrified by the 
idea that she must have done something wrong, and that 
the steward was armed whh inscrutable legal power to try, 
sentence, and punish her for the offense on the spot. 

“Now, sir,” said Mr. Munder, addressing Uncle Joseph 
as if he was the speaker of the House of Commons, ‘ ‘ if you 
have done with that sal volatile, and if the person by your 
side has sufficiently recovered her senses to listen, I should 
wish to say a word or two to both of you.” 

At this exordium Sarah tried affrightedly to rise from 
her chair ; but her uncle caught her by the hand and pressed 
her back in it. 

“Wait and rest,” he whispered. “I shall take all the 
scolding on my own shoulder, and do all the talking with 
my own tongue. As soon as you are fit to walk again I 
promise you this: whether the big man has said his word 
or two, or has not said it, we will quietly get up and go our 
ways out of the house.” 

“ Up to the present moment,” said Mr. Munder, “ I have 
refrained from expressing an opinion. The time has now 
come when, holding a position of trust as I do in this estab- 
lishment and being accountable, and indeed responsible, as 
I am, for what takes place in it, and feeling, as 1 must, that 
things cannot be allowed or even permitted to rest as they 
are — it is my duty to say that I think your conduct is very 
extraordinary.” Directing this forcible conclusion to his 
sentence straight at Sarah, Mr. Munder leaned back in his 
chair, quite full of words, and quite empty of meaning, to 
collect himself comfortably for his next effort. 

“ My only desire,” he resumed, with a plaintive impar- 
tiality, “is to act fairly by all parties. I don’t wish to 
frighten anybody, or to staVtle anybody, or even to terrify 


m 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


anybody. I wish to unravel, or, if you please, to make 
out, what I may term, with perfect propriety— events. 
And when I have done that I should wish to put it to you, 
ma’am, and to you, sir, whether — I say, I should wish to 
put it to you both, calmly and impartially, and politely, 
and plainly, and smoothly — and when I say smoothly I 
mean quietly — whether you are not both of you bound to 
explain yourselves.” 

Mr. Munder paused to let that last irresistible appeal 
work its way to the consciences of the persons whom he 
addressed. The housekeeper took advantage of the silence 
to cough, as congregations cough just before the sermon, 
apparently on the principle of getting rid of bodily infirm- 
ities beforehand in order to give the mind free play for un- 
disturbed intellectual enjoyment. Betsey, following Mrs. 
Pentreatli’s lead, indulged in a cough on her own account 
—of the faint, distrustful sort. Uncle Joseph sat perfectly 
easy and undismayed, still holding his niece’s hand in his 
and giving it a little squeeze from time to time when the 
steward’s oratory became particulary involved and im- 
pressive. Sarah never moved, never looked up, never lost 
the expression of terrified restraint which had taken pos- 
session of her face from the first moment when she entered 
the housekeeper’s room. 

“Now what are the facts, and circumstances, and 
events?” proceeded Mr. Munder, leaning back in his chair, 
in calm enjoyment of the sound of his own voice. “You, 
ma’am, and you, sir, ring at the bell of the door of this 
mansion ” (here he looked hard at Uncle Joseph, as much 
as to say, “I don’t give up that point about the house 
being a mansion, you see, even on the judgment-seat”)— 

“ you are let in, or, rather, admitted. You, sir, assert that 
you wish to inspect the mansion (you say ‘ see tlie house,’ 
but, being a foreigner, we are not surprised at your mak- 
ing a little mistake of that sort) ; you, ma’am, coincide and 
even agree in that request. What follows? You are shown 
over the mansion. It is not usual to show strangers over 
it, but we happen to have certain reasons ” 

Sarah started. “What reasons?” she asked, looking up 
quickly. } 

Uncle Joseph felt her hand turn cold and tremble in his. I 
“ Hush! hush!” he said, “leave the talking to me.” | 

At the same moment Mrs. Pentreath pulled Mr. Munder | 
warily by the coat tail and whispered to him to be careful. 
“Mrs. Prankland’s letter,” she said in his ear, “tells us i 
particularly not to let it be suspected that we are acting ^ 
under orders.” 

“ Don’t you fancy, Mrs. Pentreath, that I forget what I J 
ought to remember,” rejoined Mr. Munder— who had for- | 


THE DEAD SECRET 


169 


gotten, nevertheless. “ And don’t you imagine that I was 
going to commit myself ’ ’ (the very thing which he had 
just been on the point of doing). “Leave this business in 
my hands, if you will be so good. What reasons did you 
say, ma’am?” he added aloud, addressing himself to Sarah. 
“Never you mind about reasons we have not got to do 
with them now ; we have got to do with facts, and circum- 
stances, and events. I was observing, or remarking, that 
you, sir, and you, ma’am, were shown over this mansion. 
You were conducted, and indeed led, up the west staircase 
— the spacious west staircase, sir! You were shown with 
politeness, and even with courtesy, through the breakfast- 
room, the library and the drawing-room. In that drawing- 
room, you, sir, indulge in outrages, and, I will add, in 
violent language. In that drawing-room you, ma’am, dis- 
appear, or, rather, go altogether out of sight. Such con- 
duct as this, so highly unparalleled, so entirely unprece- 
dented, and so very unusual, causes Mrs. Pentreath and 

myself to feel ” Here Mr. Munder stopped, at a loss 

for a word for the first time. 

“ Astonished,” suggested Mrs. Pentreath, after a long 
interval of silence. 

“No, ma’am!” retorted Mr. Munder. “ Nothing of the 
sort. We were not at all astonished; we were — surprised. 
And what followed and succeeded that? What did you 
and I hear, sir, on the first floor?” (looking sternly at 
Uncle Joseph). “And what did you hear, Mrs. Pentreath, 
while you were searching for the missing and absent party 
on the second floor. What?” 

Thus apparently appealed to, the housekeeper answered 
briefly : “A scream. ’ ’ 

“No! no! no!” said Mr. Munder, fretfully tapping his 
hand on the table. “A screech, Mrs. Pentreath — a 
screech. And what is the meaning, purport, and upshot 
of that screech? Young woman!” (here Mr. Munder 
turned suddenly on Betsey) “ we have now traced these ex- 
traordinary facts and circumstances as far as you. Have 
the goodness to step forward and tell us, in the presence of 
these two parties, how you came to utter or give what Mrs. 
Pentreath calls a scream, but what I call a screech? A 
plain statement will do, my good girl — quite a plain state- 
ment, if you please. And, young woman, one, word more 
— speak up. You understand me? Speak up!” 

Covered with confusion by the public and solemn nature 
of this appeal, Betsey, on starting with her statement, un- 
consciously followed the oratorical example of no less a 
person than Mr. Munder himself; that is to say, she spoke 
on the principle of drowning the smallest possible infu- 
sion of ideas in the largest possible dilution of words, 


170 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


Extricated from the mesh of verbal entanglement in 
which she contrived to involve it, her statement may be, 
not unfairly, represented as simply consisting of the follow- 
ing facts: 

First, Betsey had to relate that she happened to be 
just taking the lid off the saucepan on the kitchen fire 
when she heard in the neighborhood of the housekeeper’s 
room a sound of hurried footsteps (vernacularly termed by 
the witness a “ scurrying of somebody’s feet”). Secondly, 
Betsey, on leaving the kitchen to ascertain what the sound 
meant, heard the footsteps retreating rapidly along the pas- 
sage which led to the north side of the house, and, stimu- 
lated by curiosity, followed the sound of them for a cer- 
tain distance. Thirdly, at a sharp turn in the passage, 
Betsey stopped short, despairing of overtaking the person 
whose footsteps she heard, and feeling also a sense of dread 
(termed by the witness, ‘‘creeping of the flesh”) at the 
idea of venturing alone, even in broad daylight, into the 
ghostly quarter of the house. Fourthly, while still hesi- 
tating at the turn in the passage, Betsey heard ‘ ‘ the lock 
of a door go,” and stimulated afresh by curiosity, ad- 
vanced a few steps further — then stopped again, debating 
within herself the difficult and dreadful question whether 
it is the usual custom of ghosts when passing from one 
place to another to unlock any unclosed door which may 
happen to be in their way, or to save trouble by simply 
passing through it. Fifthly, after long deliberation and 
many false starts — forward toward the north hall and 
backward toward the kitchen— Betsey decided that it was 
the immemorial custom of all ghosts to pass through doors 
and not unlock them. Sixthly, fortified by this conviction, 
Betsey went on boldly close to the door, when she sud- 
denly heard a loud report as of some heavy body falling 
(graphically termed by the witness a “banging scrash”). 
Seventhly, the noi§e frightened Betsey out of her wits, 
brought her heart up into her mouth and took away her 
breath. Eighthly and lastly, on recovering breath enough 
to scream (or screech), Betsey did, with might and main, 
scream (or screech), running backward toward the kitchen 
as fast as her legs would carry her, with all her hair 
“ standing up on end,” and all her flesh “ in a crawl ’’from 
the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. 

“Just so! just so!” said Mr. Munder, when the state- 
ment came to a close — as if the sight of a young woman 
with all her hair standing on end and all her flesh in a 
crawl were an ordinary result of his experience of female 
humanity— “just so! You may stand back, my good girl 
— you may stand back. There is nothing to smile at, sir,” 
he continued, sternly, addressing Uncle Joseph, who had 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


171 


been excessively amused by Betsey’s manner of delivering 
her evidence. “You would be doing better to carry, or 
rather transport, your mind back to what followed and suc- 
ceeded the young woman’s screech. What did we all do, 
sir? We rushed to the spot and we ran to the place. And 
what did we all see, sir? We saw you, ma’am, lying horh 
zontally prostrate on the top of the landing of the first of 
the flight of the north stairs ; and we saw those keys, now 
hanging up yonder, abstracted and purloined, and, as it 
were, snatched from their place in this room and lying 
horizontally prostrate likewise on the floor of the hall. 
There are the facts, the circumstances, and the events, laid, 
or rather placed, before you. What have you got to say to 
them? I call upon you both solemnly, and, I will add, 
seriously ! In my own name, in the name of Mrs. Pentreath, 
in the name of our e'mployers, in tlie name of decency, in 
the name of wonder— what do you mean by it?” 

With that conclusion Mr. Munder struck his fist on the 
table and waited, with a glare of merciless expectation, for 
anything in the shape of an answer, an explanation or a 
defense which the culprits at the bottom of tlie room might 
be disposed to offer. 

“Tell him anything,” whispered Sarah to the old man. 
“ Anything to keep him quiet; anything to make him let 
us go I After what I have suffered, these people will drive 
me mad!” 

Never very quick at inventing an excuse, and perfectly 
ignorant besides of what had really happened to his niece 
while she was alone in the north hall, Uncle Joseph, with 
the best will in the world to prove himself equal to the 
emergency, felt considerable difficulty in deciding what he 
should say or do. Determined, however, at all hazards to 
spare Sarah any useless suffering and to remove her from 
the house as speedily as possible, he rose to take the re- 
sponsibility of speaking on himself, looking hard, before 
he opened his lips, at Mr. Munder, who immediately leaned 
forward on the table with his hand to his ear. Uncle 
Joseph acknowledged this polite act of attention with one 
of his fantastic bows; and then replied to the whole of the 
steward’s harangue in these six unanswerable words: 

“ I wish you good-day, sir!” 

“How dare you wish me anything of the sort?” cried 
Mr. Munder, jumping out of his chair in violent indigna- 
tion. “ How dare you trifle with a serious subject and a 
serious question in that way? Wish me good-day, in- 
deed ! Do you suppose I am going to let you out of this 
house without hearing some explanation of the abstract- 
ing and purloining and snatching of the keys of the north 
rooms?” 


173 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


“ Ah! it is that you want to know?” said Uncle Joseph, 
stimulated to plunge headlong intd an excuse by the in- 
creasing agitation and terror of his niece. ‘ ‘ See, now ! I 
shall explain. What was it, dear and good sir, that we 
said when we were first let in? This: ‘ We have come to 
see the house. ’ Now there is a north side to the house, 
and a west side to the house. Good I That is two sides ; 
and I and my niece are two people; and we divide our- 
selves in two, to see the two sides. I am the half that goes 
west, with you and the dear and good lady behind there. 
My niece here is the other half that goes north, all by her- 
self, and drops the keys, and falls into a faint, because in 
that old part of the house it is what you call musty-fusty, 
and there is smells of tombs and spiders, and that is all 
the explanation, and quite enough, too. I wish you good- 
day, sir.” 

“Damme! if ever I met with the like of you before!” 
roared Mr. Munder, entirely forgetting his dignity, his re- 
spectability and his long words in the exasperation of the 
moment. “ You are going to have it all your own way, 
are you, Mr. Foreigner? You will walk out of this place 
when you please, will you, Mr. Foreigner? We will see 
what the justice of the peace of this district has to say to 
that,” cried Mr. Munder, recovering his solemn manner 
and his lofty phraseology. ‘ ‘ Property in this house is con- 
fided to my care ; and unless I hear some satisfactory ex- 
planation of the purloining of those keys hanging up there, 
sir, on that wall, sir, before your eyes, sir— I shall consider 
it my duty to detain you, and the person with you, until I 
can get legal advice, and lawful advice, and magisterial 
advice. Do you hear that, sir?” 

Uncle Joseph’s ruddy cheeks suddenly deepened in color, 
and his face assumed an expression which made the house- 
keeper rather uneasy and which had an irresistibly cooling 
effect on the heat of Mr. Munder’ s anger. 

“You Will keep us here? Foit said the old man, 
speaking very quietly and looking very steadily at the 
steward. “Now, see. I take this laay (courage, my 
child, courage! there is nothing to tremble for)— I take 
this lady with me; I throw that door open, so! I stand 
and wait before it; and I say to you, ‘Shut that door 
against us, if you dare. ’ ’ ’ 

At this defiance Mr. Munder advanced a few steps and 
then stopped. If Uncle Joseph’s steady look at him had 
wavered for an instant he would have closed the door. 

“I say again,” repeated the old man, “shut it against 
us, if you dare. The laws and customs of your country, 
sir, have made me an Englishman. If you can talk into 
one ear of a magistrate I can talk into the other. If he 


D^At) SECBJ^T. 


iU 

must listen to you, a citizen of this country, he must listen 
to me, a citizen of this country also. Say the word, if you 
please. Bo you accuse? or do you threaten? or do you 
shut the door?’- 

Before Mr. Munder could reply to any of these three 
direct questions, the housekeeper begged him to return to 
his chair and to speak to her. As he resumed his place, 
she whispered to him, in warning tones, “Bemember 
Mrs. Frankland’s letter !” 

At the same moment. Uncle Joseph, considering that he 
had waited long enough, took a step forward to the door. 
He was prevented from advancing any further by his 
niece, who caught him suddenly by the arm, and said in 
his ear, “Look! they are whispering about us again!” 

“Well,” said Mr. Munder, replying to the housekeeper. 
“I do remember Mrs. Frankland’s letter, ma’am; and 
w" hat then?” 

“Hush! not so loud,” whispered Mrs. Pentreath. “I 
don’t presume, Mr. Munder, to differ in opinion with you; 
but I want to ask one or two questions. Bo you think we 
have any charge that a magistrate would listen to, to bring 
against these people?” 

Mr. Munder looked' puzzled, and seemed, for once in a 
way, to be at a loss for an answer. 

“ Does what you remember of Mrs. Frankland’s letter,” 
pursued the housekeeper, “incline you to think that she 
would be pleased at a public exposure of what has happened 
in the house? She tells us to take private notice of that 
woman’s conduct, and to follow her unperceived when she 
goes away. I don’t venture on the liberty of advising you, 
Mr. Munder, but, as far as regards myself, I wash my 
hands of all responsibility, if we do anything but follow 
Mrs. Frankland’s instructions (as she herself tells us) to 
the letter.” 

Mr. Munder hesitated. Uncle Joseph, who had paused 
for a minute when Sarah directed his attention to the whis- 
pering at the upper end of the room, now drew her off 
slowly with him to the door. “ Betzee, my dear, ” he said, 
addressing the maid, with perfect coolness and composure, 
“ we are strangers here ; will you be so kind to us as to 
show the way out?” 

Betsey looked at the housekeeper, who motioned to her 
to appeal for orders to the steward. Mr. Munder was 
sorely tempted, for the sake of his own importance, to in- 
sist on instantly carrying out the violent measures to which 
he had threatened to have recourse; but Mrs. Pentreath’s 
objections made him pause in spite of himself. 

“Betzee, my dear,” repeated Uncle Joseph, “has all 


174 DEAD SECRET, 

this talking been too much for your ears? has it made you 
deaf?” 

‘‘Wait!” cried Mr. Munder, impatiently. “I insist on 
your waiting, sir?” 

“You insist? Well, well, because you are an uncivil 
man is no reason why I should be an uncivil man too. We 
will wait a little, sir, if you have anything more to say.” 
Making that concession to the claims of politeness. Uncle 
Joseph walked gently backward and forward with his niece 
in the passage outside the door. “ Sarah, my child, I have 
frightened the man of the big words,” he whispered. 
“ Try not to tremble so much; we shall soon be out in the 
fresh air again. ’ ’ 

In the meantime, Mr. Munder continued his whispered 
conversation with the housekeeper, making a desperate 
effort, in the midst of his perplexities, to maintain his cus- 
tomary air of patronage and his customary assumption of 
superiority. “There is a great deal of truth, ma’am,” he 
softly began — “a great deal of truth, certainly, in what 
you say. But you are talking of the woman, while I am 
talking of the man. Do you mean to tell me that I am to 
let him go, after what has happened, without at least in- 
sisting on his giving me his name and address?” 

“ Do you put trust enough in the foreigner to believe 
that he Vould give you his right name and address if you 
asked him?” inquired Mrs. Pentreath, “ With submission 
to your better judgment, I must confess that I don’t. But 
supposing you were to detain him and charge him before 
the magistrate — and how you are to do that, the magis- 
trate’s house being, I suppose, about a couple of hours’ 
walk from here, is more than I can tell — you must surely 
risk offending Mrs. Frankland by detaining the woman 
and charging the woman as well ; for after all, Mr. Mun- 
der, though I believe the foreigner to be capable of any- 
thing, it was the woman that took the keys, was it not?” 

“Quite so! quite so!” said Mr. Munder, whose sleepy 
eyes were now opened to* this plain and straightforward 
view of the case for the first time. “ I was, oddly enough, 
putting that point to myself, Mrs. Pentreath, just before 
you happened to speak of it. Just so! just so!” 

“I can’t help thinking,” continued the housekeeper, in 
a mysterious whisper, “ that the best plan, and the plan 
most in accordance with our instructions, is to let them 
both go, as if we did not care to demean ourselves by any 
more quarreling or arguing with them, and to have them 
followed to the next place they stop at. The gardener’s 
boy, Jacob, is v%eding the broad walk in the west garden 
this afternoon. These people have not seen him about the 
jpremises, and need not see him, if they are let out again by 


THE DEAD SECRET. 175 

the south door. Jacob is a sharp lad, as you know ; and, 
if he was properly instructed, I really don’t see—- — ” 

“ It is a most singular circumstance, Mrs. Pentreath,” 
interposed Mr. Muiider, with the gravity of consummate 
assurance ; ‘ ‘ but when I first sat down to this table, that 
idea about Jacob occurred to me. What with the effort of 
speaking, and the heat of argument, I got led away from 
it in the most unaccountable manner ” 

Here Uncle Joseph, whose stock of patience and x>olite* 
ness was getting exhausted, put his head into the room 
again. 

“I shall have one last word to address to you, sir, in a 
moment,” said Mr. Munder, before the old man could 
speak. “ Don’t you suppose that your blustering and 
your bullying has had any effect on me. It may do with 
foreigners, sir, but it won’t do with Englishmen, I can tell 
you.” 

Uncle Joseph shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and re- 
joined his niece in the passage outside. While the house- 
keeper and the steward had been conferring together, 
Sarah had been trying hard to persuade her uncle to profit 
by her knowledge of the passages that led to the south 
door, and to slip away unperceived. But the old man 
steadily refused to be guided by her advice. “ I will not 
go out of a place guiltily,” he said, “ when I have done no 
harm. Nothing shall persude me to put myself, or to put 
you, in the wrong. I am not a man of much wits; but let 
my conscience guide me, and so long I shall go right. They 
let us in here, Sarah, of their own accord ; and they shall 
let us out of their own accord also.” 

“Mr. Munder! Mr. Munder!” whispered the house- 
keeper, interfering to stop a fresh explosion of the stew- 
ard’s indignation, which threatened to break out at the 
contempt implied by the shrugging of Uncle Joseph’s 
shoulders, ” while you are speaking to that audacious man, 
shall I slip into the garden and give Jacob his instruc- 
tions?” 

Mr. Munder paused before answering — tried hard to see 
a more dignified way out of the dilemma in which he had 
placed himself than the way suggested by the housekeepei* 
— failed entirely to discern anything of the sort — swallowed 
his indignation at one heroic gulp— and replied emphatic- 
ally in two words: ” Go, ma’am.” 

' ‘ What does that mean? what has she gone th§,t way 
tor?” said Sarah to her uncle, in a quick, suspicious whis- 
per, as the housekeeper brushed hastily by them on her 
way to the west garden. 

Before there was time to answer the question, it was fol- 
lowed by another, put by Mr. Munder. 




THE dead secret 


y Now, sir!” said the steward, standing in the doorway, 
with his hands under his coat-tails, and his head very high 
in the air. “Now, sir, and now, ma’am, for my last 
words. Am I to have a proper explanation of the abstract- 
ing and purloining of those keys, or am I not?” 

“Certainly, sir, you are to have the explanation,” re- 
plied Uncle Joseph. “It is, if you please, the same ex- 
planation that I had the honor of giving to you a little 
while ago. Do you wish to hear it again? It is all the ex- 
planation we have got about us.” 

“Oh! it is, is it?” said Mr. Munder. “Then all I have 
to say to both of you is — leave the house directly! Di- 
rectly!” he added, in his most coarsely offensive tones, 
taking refuge in the insolence of authority, from the dim 
consciousness of the absurdity of his own position, which 
would force itself on him even while he spoke. “Yes, 
sir!” he continued, growing more and more angry at the 
composure with which Uncle Joseph listened to him — 
“Yes, sir! you may bow and scrape, and jabber your 
broken English somewhere else. I won’t put up with you 
here. I have reflected with myself, and reasoned with 
myself, and asked myself calmly— as Englishmen always 
do— if it is any use making you of importance, and I have 
come to a conclusion, and that conclusion is — no, it isn’t ! 
Don’t you go away with a notion that your bluster ings and 
bullyings have had any effect on me. (Show them out, 
Betsey !) I consider you beneath— ay, and below ! — my 
notice. Language fails, sir, to express my contempt. 
Leave the house!” 

“And I, sir,” returned the object of all this withering 
derision, with the most exasperating politeness, “I shall 
say, for having your contempt, what I could by no means 
have said for having your respect, which is, briefly— thank 
you. I, the small foreigner, take the contempt of you, the 
big Englishman, as the greatest compliment that can be 
paid from a man of your composition to a man of mine.” 
With that. Uncle Joseph made a last fantastic bow, took 
his niece’s arm, and followed Betsey along the passages 
that led to the south door, leaving Mr. Munder to compose 
a fit retort at his leisure. 

Ten minutes later the housekeeper returned breathless 
to her room, and found the steward walking backward and 
forward in a high state of irritation. 

“ Pra> make your mind easy, Mr. Munder,” she said. 
“ They are both clear of the house at last, and Jacob has 
got them well in view on the path over the moor.” 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


177 


CHAPTER V. 

MOZART PLAYS FAREWELL. 

Excepting that he took leave of Betsey, the servant- 
maid, with great cordiality' Uncle Joseph spoke not 
another word, after his parting reply to Mr. Munder, until 
he and his niece were alone again under the east wall of 
Porthgenna Tower. There he paused, looked up at the 
house, then at his companion, then back at the house once 
more, and at last opened his lips to speak. 

“ I am sorry, my child,” he said — “ I am sorry from my 
healrt. This has been wbat you call in England a bad 
job.” 

Thinking that he referred to the scene which had just 
passed in the housekeeper’s room, Sarah asked his pardon 
for having been the innocent means of bringing him into 
angry collision with such a person as Mr. Munder. 

“No! no! no!” he cried. “I w^as not thinking of the 
man of the big body and the big words. He made me 
angry, it is not to be denied ; but that is all over and gone 
now. I put him and his big words away from me, as I 
kick this stone, here, from the pathway into the road. It 
is not of your Munders, or your housekeepers, or your Bet* 
zees, that I now speak — it is of something that is nearer 
to you and nearer to me also, because I make of your 
interest my own interest too. I shall tell you what 
it is while we walk on — for I see in your face, Sarah, 
that you are restless and in fear so long as we stop 
in the neighborhood of this dungeon-house. Come! I am 
ready for the march. There is the path. Let us go back 
by it, and pick up our little baggages at the inn where we 
left them, on the other side of this windy wilderness of a 
place.” 

“ Yes, yes, uncle! Let us lose no time; let us walk fast. 
Don’t be afraid of tiring me; I am much stronger now.” 

They turned into the same path by which they had ap- 
proached Porthgenna Tower in the afternoon. By the time 
they had walked over a little more than the first hundred 
yards of their journey, Jacob, the gardener’s boy, stole out 
from behind the ruinous inclosure at the north side of the 
house with his hoe in his hand. The sun had just set, but 
there was a fine light still over the wide, open surface of 
the moon, and Jacob paused to let the old man and his 
niece get further away from the building before he followed 
them. The housekeeper’s instructions had directed him 
just to keep them in sight, and no more, and, if he hap- 
pened to observe that they stopped and turned round to 
look behind them, he was to stop, too, and pretend to be 


178 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


digging with his hoe, as if he was at work on the moorland. 
Stimulated by the promise of a sixpence, if he was careful 
to do exactly as he had been told, Jacob kept his instruc- 
tions in his memory, and kept his eye on the two strangers, 
and promised as fairly to e^arn the reward in prospect for 
him as a boy could. 

“And now, my child, I shall tell you what it is I am 
sorry for,” resumed Uncle Joseph, as they proceeded along 
the path. “ I am sorry that we have come out upon this 
journey, and run our little risk, and had our little scolding, 
and gained nothing. The word you said in my ear, Sarah, 
when I was getting you out of the faint (and you should 
have come out of it sooner, if the muddle-headed people in 
the dungeon-house had been quicker with the water)— the 
word you said in my ear was not much, but it was enough 
to tell me that we have taken this journey in vain. I may 
hold my tongue, I may make my best face at it, I may be 
content to walk blindfolded with a mystery that lets no 
peep of daylight into my eyes— but it is not the less true 
that the one thing your heart was most set on doing, when 
we started on this journey, is the one thing also that you 
have not done. I know that, if I know nothing else; and 
I say again, it is a bad job— yes, yes, upon my life and 
faith, there is no disguise to put upon it; it is, in your 
plainest English, a very bad job.” 

As he concluded the expression of his sympathy in these 
quaint terms, the dread and distrust, the watchful terror, 
that marred the natui’al softness of Sarah’s eyes, disap- 
peared in an expression of sorrowful tenderness, which 
seemed to give back to them all their beauty. 

“ Don’t be sorry for me, uncle,” she said, stopping, and 
gently brushing away with her hand some specks of dust 
that lay on the collar of his coat. “ I have suffered so 
much and suffered so long, that the heaviest disappoint- 
ments pass lightly over me now.” 

“I won’t hear you say it!” cried Uncle Joseph. “You 
give me shocks I can’t bear when you talk to me in this 
way. You shall have no more disappointments— no, you 
shall not! I, Joseph Buschmann, the Obstinate, the Pig- 
headed, I say it!” 

‘ ‘ The day when I shall have no more disappointments, 
uncle, is not far off now. Let me wait a little longer, and 
endure a little longer; I have learned to be patient, and to 
hope for nothing. Fearing and failing, fearing and failing 
— that has been my life ever since I was a young woman — 
the life I have become used to by this time. If you are 
surprised, as I know you must be, at my not possessing 
myself of the letter, when I had the keys of the Myrtle 
Koom in my hand, and when no one was near to stop me, 


THE DEAD SECRET 


179 


remember the history of my life, and take that as an expla- 
nation. Fearing and failing, fearing and failing— if I told 
you all the truth, I could tell no more than that. Let us 
walk on, uncle. ’ ’ 

The resignation in her voice and manner while she spoke 
was the resignation of despair. It gave her an unnatural 
self-possession, which altered her, in the eyes of Uncle 
Joseph, almost past recognition. He looked ati her in 
undisguised alarm. 

“No!” he said, “we will not walk on; we will walk back 
to the dungeon- house; we will make another plan; we will 
try to get at this devil’s imp of a letter in some other way. 
I care for no Munders, no housekeepers, no Betzees — 1 1 I 
care for nothing but the getting you the one thing you 
want, and the taking you home again as easy in your 
mind as I am myself. Come! let us go back.” 

“ It is too late to go back.” 

“How too late? Ah, dismal, dingy dungeon-house of 
the devil, how I hate you!” cried Uncle Joseph, looking 
back over the prospect, and shaking both his fists at Porth- 
genna Tower. 

“It is too late, uncle,” she repeated. “Too late, be- 
cause the opportunity is lost ; too late, because if I could 
bring it back, I dare not go near the Myrtle Room again. 
My last hope was to change the hiding-place of the letter 
— and that last hope I have given up. I have only one ob- 
ject in life left now; you may help me in it; but I cannot 
tell you how unless you come on with me at once — unless 
you say nothing more about going back to Porthgenna 
Tower.” 

Uncle Joseph began to expostulate. His niece stopped 
him in the middle of a sentence, by touching him on the 
shoulder, and pointing to a particular spot on the darken- 
ing slope of the moor below them. 

“Look!” she said, “there is somebody on the path be- 
hind us. Is it a boy or a man?” 

Uncle Joseph looked through the fading light, and saw 
a figure at some little distance. It seemed like the figure 
of a boy, and he was apparently engaged in digging on the 
moor. 

“ Let us turn round, and go on at once,” pleaded Sarah, 
before the old man could answer her. “ I can’t say what 
I want to say to you, uncle, until we are safe under shelter 
at the inn. ’ ’ 

They went on until they reached the highest ground on 
the moor. There they stopped, and looked back again. 
The rest of their way lay down hill; and the spot on which 
they stood was the last point from which a view could be 
obtained of Porthgenna Tower. 


180 


THE DEAD SECRET 


‘‘We have lost sight of the boy,” said Uncle Joseph, 
looking over the ground below them. 

Sarah’s younger and sharper eyes bore witness to the 
truth of her uncle’s words — the view over the moor was 
lonely now, in every direction, as far as she could see. Be' 
fore going on again, she moved a little away from the old 
man, and looked at the tower of the ancient house, rising 
heavy and black in the dim light, with the dark sea back- 
ground stretching behind it like a wall. ” Never again!” 
she whispered to herself. “Never, never, never again!” 
Her eyes wandered away to the church, and to the ceme- 
tery inclosure by its side, barely distinguishable now in the 
shadows of the coming night. “Wait for me a little 
longer,” she said. Looking toward the burial ground with 
straining eyes, and pressing her hand on her bosom over 
the place where the book of hymns lay hid. “My wan- 
derings are nearly at an end ; the day for my coming home 
again is not far off !” 

The tears filled her eyes and shut out the view. She re- 
joined her uncle, and, taking his arm again, drew him 
rapidly a few steps along the downward path — then checked 
herself as if struck by a sudden suspicion, and walked back 
a few paces to the highest ridge of the ground. “ I am not 
sure,” she said, replying to her companion’s look of sur- 
prise — “ I am not sure whether we have seen the last yet 
of that boy who was digging on the moor.” 

As the words passed her lips, a figure stole out from be- 
hind one of the large fragments of granite rock which were 
scattered over the waste on all sides of them. It was once 
more the figure of the boy, and again he began to dig, 
without the slightest apparent reason, on the barren ground 
at his feet. 

“Yes, yes, I see,” said Uncle Joseph, as his niece 
eagerly directed his attention to the suspicious figure. “It 
is the sarne boy, and he is digging still— and, if you please, 
what of that?” 

Sarah did not attempt to answer. “ Let us get on,” she 
said, hurriedly. “ Let us get on as fast as we can to the 
inn.” 

They turned again, and took the downward path before 
them. In less than a minute they had lost sight of Porth- 
genna Tower, of the old church, and of the whole of the 
western view. Still, though there was now nothing but 
the blank darkening moorland to look back at, Sarah per- 
sisted in stopping at frequent intervals, as long as there 
was any light left, to glance behind her. She made no re- 
mark, she offered no excuse for thus delaying the journey 
back to the inn. It was only when they arrived within 
sight of the lights of the post -town that she ceased looking 


THJ^ DiEAb SECkM\ 


181 


back, and that she spoke to her companion. The few 
words she addressed to him amounted to nothing more than 
a request that he would ask for a private sitting-room as 
soon as they reached their place of sojourn for the night. 

They ordered beds at the inn, and were shown into the 
best parlor to wait for supper. The moment they were 
alone, Sarah drew a chair close to the old man’s side, and 
whispered these words in his ear : 

“ Uncle ! we have been followed up every step of the way 
from Porthgenna Tower to this place.” 

“So! so! And how do you know that?” inquired Uncle 
Joseph. 

“ Hush! Somebody may be listening at the door, some- 
body may be creeping under the window. You noticed 
that boy who was digging on the moor ” 

“Bah! Why, Sarah! do you frighten yourself, do you 
try to frighten me about a boy?” 

“Oh, not so loud! not so loud! They have laid a trap 
for us. Uncle ! I suspected it when we first entered the 
doors of Porthgenna Tower— I am sure of it now. What 
did all that whispering mean between the housekeeper and 
the steward when we first got into the hall? I watched 
their faces, and I know they were talking about us. They 
were not half surprised enough at seeing us, nor half sur- 
prised enough at hearing what we wanted. Don’t laugh at 
me, uncle! There is real danger; it is no fancy of mine. 
The keys — come closer— the Iceys of the north rooms have 
got new labels on them ; the doors have all been numbered. 
Think of that! Think of the whispering when we came 
in, and the whispering afterward, in the liousekeeper’s 
room, when you got up to go away. You noticed the sud- 
den change in that man’s behavior after the housekeeper 
spoke to him — you must have noticed it? They let us in 
too easily, and they let us out too easily. No, no! I am 
not deluding myself. There was some secret motive for 
letting us into the house, and some secret motive for let- 
ting us out again. That boy on the moor betrays it, if 
nothing else does. I saw him following us all the way 
here, as plainly as I see you. I am not frightened without 
reason, this time. As surely as we two are together in this 
room, there is a trap laid for us by the people at Porth- 
genna Tower.” 

“A trap? What trap? And how? and why? and where- 
fore?” inquired Uncle Joseph, expressing bewilderment by 
waving both his hands rapidly to and fro close before his 
eyes. 

“ They want to make me speak, they want to follow me, 
they want to find out where I go, they want to ask me 
questions/’ answered, trembling violently, “Unclej 


182 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


you remember what I told you of those crazed words I 
said to Mrs. Frankland — I ought to have cut my tongue 
out rather than have spoken them! They have done 
dreadful mischief— I am certain of it — dreadful mischief 
already. I have made myself suspected ! I shall be ques- 
tioned, if Mrs. Frankland finds me out again. She will try 
to find me out — we shall be inquired after here — we must 
destroy all trace of where we go to next — we must make 
sure that the people of this inn can answer no questions — 
oh, Uncle Joseph, whatever we do, let us make sure of 
that!” 

“ Good,” said the old man, nodding his head with a per- 
fectly self-satisfied air. “Be quite easy, my child, and 
leave it to me to make sure. When you are gone to bed, I 
sliall send for the landlord, and I shall say, ‘ Get us a lit- 
tle carriage, if you please, sir, to take us back again to- 
morrow to the coach for Truro. ’ ’ ’ 

“ No, no, no! we must not hire a carriage here.” 

“ And I say yes, yes, yes! We will hire a carriage here, 
because I will, first of all, make sure with the landlord. 
Listen: I shall say to him, ‘ If there come after us people 
with inquisitive looks in their eyes and uncomfortable 
questions in their mouths — if you please, sir, hold your 
tongue. ’ Then I shall wink my eye, I shall lay my finger, 
so, to the side of my nose, I shall give him one little laugh 
that means much — and, crick ! crack ! I have made sure of 
the landlord! and there is an end of it!” 

“We must not trust the landlord, uncle— we must not 
trust anybody. When we leave this place to-morrow, we 
must leave it on foot, and take care no living soul follows 
us. Look ! here is a map of West Cornwall hanging up on 
the wall, with roads and cross-roads all marked on it. 
We may find out beforehand what direction we ought to 
walk in. A night’s rest will give me all the strength I 
want; and we have no luggage that we cannot carry. 
You have nothing but your knapsack, and I have nothing 
but the little carpet-bag you lent me. We can walk six, 
seven, even ten miles, with resting by the way. Come 
here and look at the map — pray, pray come and look at the 
map!” 

Protesting against the abandonment of his own project, 
which he declared, and sincerely believed, to be perfectly 
adapted to meet the emergency in Avhich they were placed, 
Uncle Joseph joined his niece in examining the map. A 
little beyond the post-town, a cross-road was marked, run- 
ning northward at right angles with the highway that led 
to Truro, and conducting to another road, which looked 
large enough to be a coach- road, and which led through a 
town of sufficient importance to have its name printed in 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


183 


capital letters. On discovering this, Sarah proposed that 
they should follow the cross-road (which did not appear on 
the" map to be more than five or six miles long) on foot, 
abstaining from taking any conveyance until they had ar- 
rived at the town marked in capital letters. By pursuing 
this course, they would destroy all trace of their progress 
after leaving the post-town — unless, indeed, they were fol- 
lowed on foot from this place, as they had been followed 
over the moor. In the event of any fresh difficulty of 
that sort occurring, Sarah had no better remedy to pro- 
pose than lingering on the road till after nightfall, and 
leaving it to the darkness to baffle the vigilance of any per- 
son who might be watching in the distance to see where 
they went. 

Uncle Joseph shrugged his shoulders resignedly when his 
niece gave her reasons for wishing to continue the journey 
on foot. “ There is much tramping through the dust, and 
much looking behind us, and much spying and peeping and 
suspecting and roundabout walking in all this,” he said. 
“It is by no means so easy, my child, as making sure of 
the landlord, and sitting at our ease on the cushions of the 
stage-coach. But if you will have it so, so shall it be. 
What you please, Sarah; what you please — that is all the 
opinion of my own that I allow myself to have till we are 
back again at Truro, and are rested for good and all at the 
end of our journey.” 

“ At the end of your journey, uncle: I dare not say at 
the end of mine.'''’ 

Those few words changed the old man’s face in an in- 
stant. His eyes fixed reproachfully on his niece, his ruddy 
cheeks lost their color, his restless hands dropped suddenly 
to his sides. “ Sarah !” he said, in a low, quiet tone, which 
seemed to ha’^e no relation to the voice in which he spoke 
on ordinary occasions — “Sarah! have you the heart to 
leave me again?” 

‘ ‘ Have I the courage to stay in Cornwall ? That is the 
question to ask me, uncle. If I had only my own heart to 
consult, oh ! how gladly I should live under your roof — live 
under it, if you would let me, to my dying day 1 But my 
lot is not cast for such rest and such happiness as that. 
The fear that I have of being questioned by Mrs. Frank- 
land drives me away from Porthgenna, away from Corn- 
wall, away from you. Even my dread of the letter being 
found is hardly so great now as my dread of being traced 
and questioned. I have said what I ought not to have 
said already. If I find myself in Mrs. Frankland’s pres- 
ence again, there is nothing that she might not draw out 
of me. Oh, my God 1 to think of that kind-hearted, lovely 
youn^ wonian, wl>o bidngs happiness with her whprev^r 


184 


THE DEAD SECRET 


she goes, bringing terror to me ! Terror when her pitying 
eyes look at me ; terror when her kind voice speaks to me ; ' 
terror when her tender hand touches mine ! Uncle ! when 
Mrs. Frank) and comes to Porthgenna, the very children 
will crowd about her — every creature in that poor village 
will be drawn toward the light of her beauty and her good- 
ness, as if it was the sunshine of Heaven itself ; and I— I, 
of all living beings — must shun her as if she was a pesti- 
lence! The day when she comes into Cornwall is the day 
when I must go out of it — the day when we two must say 
farewell. Don’t, don’t add to my wretchedness by asking 
me if I have the heart to leave you ! For my dead mother’s 
sake, Uncle Joseph, believe that I am grateful, believe that 
it is not my own will that takes me away when I leave you 
again.” She sunk down on a sofa near her, laid her head, 
with one long, deep sigh, wearily on the pillow, and spoke 
no more. 

The tears gathered thick in Uncle Joseph’s eyes as he sat 
down by her side. He took one of her hands, and patted 
and stroked it as though he were soothing a little child. 
“I will bear it as well as I can, Sarah,” he whispered, 
faintly, “and I will say no more. You will write to me 
sometimes, wh(;n I am left all alone? You will give a little 
time to Uncle Joseph, for the poor dead mother's sake?” 

She turned toward him suddenly, and threw both her 
arms round his neck with a passionate energy that was 
strangely at variance with her naturally quiet, self- repressed 
character. ‘ ‘ I will write often, dear ; I will write always, ” 
she whispered, with her head on his bosom. “ If I am 
ever in any trouble or danger, you shall know it.” She 
stopped confusedly, as if the freedom of her own words and 
actions terrified her, unclasped her arms, and, turning 
away abruptly from the old man, hid her fa<5e in her hands. 
The tyranny of the restraint that governed her whole life 
was all expressed — how sadly, how eloquently ! — in that one 
little action. 

Uncle Joseph rose from the sofa, and walked gently back- 
ward and forward in the room, looking anxiously at his 
niece, but not speaking to her. After awhile the servant 
came in to prepare the table for supper. It was a welcome 
interruption, for it obliged Sarah to make an effort to re- 
cover her self-possession. After the meal was over, the 
uncle and niece separated at once for the night, without 
venturing to exchange an other word on the subject of their 
approaching separation. 

When they met the next morning, the old man had not 
recovered his spirits. Although he tried to speak as cheer- 
fully as usual, there was something strangely subdued and 
quiet ^bout him in voice, look, and manner. Sarah’j^ 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


185 


heart smote her as she saw how sadly he was altered by 
the prospect of their parting. She said a few words of 
consolation and hope ; but he only waved his hand nega- 
tively, in his quaint foreign manner, and hastened out of 
the room to find the landlord and ask for the bill. 

Soon after breakfast, to the surprise of the people at the 
inn, they set forth to continue their journey on foot, Uncle 
Joseph carrying his knapsack on his back, and his niece’s 
carpet-bag in his hand. When they arrived at the turning 
that led into the cross-road, they both stopped and looked 
back. This time they saw nothing to alarm them. There 
was no living creature visible on the broad highway over 
which they had been walking for the last quarter of an 
hour after leaving the inn. 

“ The way is clear,” said Uncle Joseph, as they turned 
into the cross-road. “Whatever might have happened 
yesterday, there is nobody following us now.” 

“Nobody that we can see,” answered Sarah. “But I 
distrust the very stones by the roadside. Let us look back 
often, uncle, before we allow ourselves to feel secure. The 
more I think of it, the more I dread the snare that is laid 
for us by those people at Porthgenna Tower.” 

“You say us, Sarah. Why should they lay a snare for 
me f 

“ Because they have seen you in my company. You will 
be safer from them when we are parted ; and that is an- 
other reason. Uncle Joseph, why we should bear the mis- 
fortune of our separation as patiently as we can.” 

“Are you going far, very far away, Sarah, when you 
leave me?” 

“ I dare not stop on my journey till I can feel that I am 
lost in the great world of London. Don’t look at me so 
sadly ! I shall never forget my promise; I shall never for- 
get to write. I have friends — not friends like you, but still 
friends — to whom I can go. I can feel safe from discov- 
ery nowhere but in London. My danger is great — it is, it 
is, indeed ! I know, from what I have seen at Porthgenna, 
that Mrs. Frankland has an interest already in finding me 
out ; and I am certain that this interest will be increased 
tenfold when she hears (as she is sure to hear) of what 
happened yesterday in the house. If they should trace 
you to Truro, oh, be careful, uncle ! be careful how you 
deal with them; be careful how you answer their ques- 
tions !’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I will answer nothing, my child. But tell me — for I 
want to know all the little chances that there are of your 
coming back — tell me, if Mrs. Frankland finds the letter, 
what shall you do then?” 

At that question Sarah’s hand, which had been resting 


186 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


languidly on her uncle’s arm while they walked together, 
closed on it suddenly. “ Even if Mrs. Frankland gets into 
the Myrtle Room,” she said, stopping and looking affright- 
edly about her while she replied, “she may not find the 
letter. It is folded up so small; it is hidden in such an un- 
likely place.” 

“ But if she does find it?” 

“ If she does, there will be more reason than ever for my 
being miles and miles away.” 

As she gave that answer, she raised both her hands to her 
heart, and pressed them firmly over it. A slight distortion 
passed rapidly across her features; her eyes closed; her 
face flushed all over — then turned paler again than ever. 
She drew out her pocket-handkerchief, and passed it 
several times over her face, on which the perspiration had 
gathered thickly. The old man, who had looked behind 
him when his niece stopped, under the impression that she 
had just seen somebody following them, observed this lat- 
ter action, and asked if she felt too hot. She shook her 
head, and took his arm again to go on, breathing, as he 
fancied, with some difficulty. He proposed that they 
should sit down by the roadside and rest a little ; but she 
only answered, “ Not yet.” So they went on for another 
Imlf hour; then turned to look behind them again, and, 
still seeing nobody, sat down for a little while to rest on a 
bank by the way -side. 

After stopping twice more at convenient resting-places, 
they reached the end of the cross-road. On the highway 
to which it led them they were overtaken by a man driv- 
ing an empty cart, who offered to give them a lift as far as 
the next town. They accepted the proposal gratefully; 
and, arriving at the town, after a drive of half an hour, 
were set down at the door of the principal inn. Finding 
on inquiry at this place that they were too late for the 
coach they took a private conveyance, which brought 
them to Truro late in the afternoon. Throughout the 
whole of the journey, from the time when they left the 
post-town of Porthgenna to the time when they stopped, 
by Sarah’s desire, at the coach- office in Truro, they had 
seen nothing to excite the smallest suspicion that their 
movements were being observed. None of the people whom 
they saw in the inhabited places, or whom they passed on 
the road, appeared to take more than the most casual 
notice of them. 

It was five o’clock when they entered the office at Truro 
to ask about conveyances running in the direction of 
Exeter. They were informed that a coach would start in 
an hour’s time, and that another coach would passthrough 
Truro at eight o'clock the next morning. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


187 


“ You will not go to-night?” pleaded Uncle Joseph. 
‘‘ You will wait, my child, and rest with me till to-mor- 
row ?’ ’ 

“ I had better go, uncle, while I have some little resolu- 
tion left, ’ ’ w^as the sad answer. 

“ But you are so pale, so tired, so weak.” 

“I shall never be stronger than I am now. Don’t set 
my own heart against me! It is hard enough to go with- 
out that. ’ ’ 

Uncle Joseph sighed, and said no more. He led the way 
across the road and down the by-street to his house. The 
cheerful man in the shop was polishing a piece of wood 
behind the counter, sitting in the same position in which 
Sarah had seen him when she first looked through the win- 
dow on her arrival at Truro. He had good news for his 
master of orders received, but Uncle Joseph listened ab^ 
sently to all that his shopman said, and hastened into the 
little back parlor without the faintest refiection of its cus- 
tomary smile on his face. “ If I had no shop and no 
orders, I might go away with you, Sarah,” he said when 
he and his niece were alone. ” Aie! Aie! the setting out 
on this journey has been the only happy part of it. Sit 
down and rest, my child. I must put my best face upon 
it, and get you some tea.” 

When the tea-tray had been placed on the table, he left 
the room, and returned, after an absence of some little 
time, wuth a basket in his hand. When the porter came 
to carry the luggage to the coach-office, he would ’vnot 
allow the basket to be taken away at the same time, but 
sat down and placed it between his feet while he occupied 
himself in pouring out a cup of tea for his niece. 

The musical box still hung at his side in its traveling- 
case of leather. As soon as he had poured out the cup of 
tea, he unbuckled the strap, removed the covering from 
the box, and placed it on the table near him. His eyes 
wandered hesitatingly toward Sarah, as he did this; he 
leaned forward, his lips trembling a little, his hand trifling 
uneasily with the empty leather case that now lay on his 
knees, and said to her in low, steady tones : 

“You will hear a little farewell song of Mozart? It may 
be a long time, Sarah, before he can play to you again. A 
little farewell song, my child, before you go?” 

His hand stole up gently from the leather case to the 
table, and set the box play ing the same air that Sarah had 
heard on the evening when she entered the parlor, after her 
journey from Somersetshire, and found him sitting alone 
listening to the music. What depths of sorrow there were 
now in those few simple notes I What mournful memories 
pf past times gathered and swelled in the heart at the bid- 


188 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


ding of that one little plaintive melody ! Sarah could not 
summon the courage to lift her eyes to the old man’s face 
— they might have betrayed to him that she was thinking 
of the days when the box that he treasured so dearly 
played the air they were listening to now by the bedside 
of his dying child. 

The stop had not been set, and the melody, after it had 
come to an end, began again. But now, after the first few 
bars, the notes succeeded one another more and more 
slowly— the air grew less and less recognizable— dropped 
at last to three notes, following each other at long inter- 
vals — then ceased altogether. The chain that governed 
the action of the machinery had all run out; Mozart’s fare- 
well song was silenced on a sudden, like a voice that had 
broken down. 

The old man started, looked earnestly at his niece, and 
threw the leather case over the box as if he desired to shut 
out the sight of it. “ The music stopped so,” he whispered 
to himself, in his own language, ‘‘ when little Joseph died! 
Don’t go!” he added, quickly, in English, almost before 
Sarah had time to feel surprised at the singular change that 
had taken place in his voice and manner, “Don’t go! 
Think better of it, and stop with me.” 

“ I have no choice, uncle, but to leave you — indeed, in- 
deed I have not! You don’t think me ungrateful? Com- 
fort me at the last moment by telling me that!” 

He pressed her hand in silence, and kissed her on both 
cheeks. “My heart is very heavy for you, Sarah,” he 
said. “The fear has come to me that it is not for your 
own good that you are going away from Uncle Joseph 
now !” 

“ I have no choice,” she sadly repeated— “ no choice but 
to leave you.” 

“It is time, then, to get the parting over.” The cloud 
of doubt and fear that had altered his face, from the 
moment when the music came to its untimely end, seemed 
to darken, when he had said those words. He took up the 
basket which he had kept so carefully at his feet, and led 
the way out in silence. 

They were barely in time, the driver was mounting to 
his seat when they got to the coach-office. “God pre- 
serve you, my child, and send you back to me soon, safe 
and well. Take the basket on your lap; thera are some 
little things in it for your journey.” His voice faltered at 
the last word, and Sarah felt his lips pressed on her hand. 
The next instant the door was closed, and she saw him 
dimly through her tears standing among the idlers on the 
pavement, who were waiting to see the coach drive off. 

By the time they were a little way out of the town, she 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


189 


was able to dry her eyes and look into the basket. It con- 
tained a pot of jam and a horn spoon, a small inlaid work- 
box from the stock in the shop, a piece of foreign-looking 
cheese, a French roll, and a little paper packet of money, 
Avith the words “Don't be angry ” written on it in Uncle 
Joseph’s hand. Sarah closed the cover of the basket again, 
and drew down her veil. She had not felt the sorrow of 
the parting in all its bitterness until that moment. Oh, 
how hard it was to be banished from the sheltering home 
which was offered to her by the one friend she had left in 
the world! 

While that thought was in her mind, the old man was 
just closing the door of his lonely parlor. His eyes Avan- 
dered to the tea-tray on the table, and to Sarah’s empty 
cup, and he whispered to himself, in his own language 
again : 

“The music stopped so when little Joseph died!” 


-o- 


BOOK V. 


CHAPTER I. 

AN OLD FRIEND AND A NEW SCHEME. 

In declaring, positively, that the boy Avhom she had seen 
digging on the moor had followed her uncle and herself to 
the post-town of Porthgenna, Sarah had asserted the literal 
truth. Jacob had tracked them to the inn, had waited a 
little Avhile about the door, to ascertain if there was any 
likelihood of their continuing their journey that evening, 
and had then returned to Portligenna Tower to make his 
report, and to claim his promised reward. 

The same night the housekeeper and the steward devoted 
themselves to the joint production of a letter to Mrs. Frank- 
land, informing her of all that had taken place, from the 
time Avhen the visitors first made their appearance to the 
time wlien the gardener’s boy had followed them to the 
door of the inn. The composition Avas plentifully gar- 
nished throughout Avith the flowers of Mr. Munder’s rhet- 
oric, and was, by a necessary consequence, inordinately 
long as a narrative, and hopelessly confused as a statement 
of facts. 

It is unnecessary to say that the letter, with all its faults 


190 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


and absurdities, was read by Mrs. Frankland with the 
deepest interest. Her husband and Mr. Orridge, to both 
of whom she communicated its contents, were as much 
amazed and perplexed by it as she was herself. Although 
the discovery of Mrs. Jazeph’s departure for Cornwall had 
led them to consider it within the range of possibility that 
she might appear at Porthgenna, and although the house- 
keeper had been written to by Rosamond under the influ- 
ence of that idea, neither she nor her husband was quite 
prepared for such a speedy confirmation of their sus- 
picions as they had now received. Their astonishment, 
however, on first ascertaining the general purport of the 
letter, was as nothing compared with their astonishment 
when they came to those particular passages in it which 
referred to Uncle Joseph. The fresh element of complica- 
tion imparted to the thickening mystery of Mrs. Jazeph 
and the Myrtle Room, by the entrance of the foreign 
stranger on the scene and by his intimate connection with 
the extraordinary proceedings that had taken place in the 
house, fairly baffled them all. The letter was read again 
and again ; was critically dissected paragraph by paragraph ; 
was carefully annotated by the doctor, for the purpose of 
extricating all the facts that it contained from the mass of 
unmeaning words in which Mr. Munder had artfully and 
lengthily involved them; and was finally pronounced, 
after all the pains that had been taken to render it intelli- 
gible, to be the most mysterious and bewildering document 
that mortal pen had ever produced. 

The first practical suggestion, after the letter had been 
laid aside in despair, emanated from Rosamond. She pro- 
posed that her husband and herself (the baby included, as 
a matter of course) should start at once for Porthgenna, to 
question the servants minutely about the proceedings of 
Mrs. Jazeph and the foreign stranger who had accompanied 
her, and to examine the premises on the north side of the 
house, with a view to discovering a clew to the locality of 
the Mju’tle Room, while events were still fresh in the mem- 
ories of witnesses. The plan thus advocated, however ex- 
cellent in itself, was opposed by Mr. Orridge on medical 
grounds. Mrs. Frankland had caught cold by exposing 
herself too carelessly to the air, on first leaving her room, 
and the doctor refused to grant her permission to travel for 
at least a week to come, if not for a longer period. 

The next proposal came from Mr. Frankland. He de- 
clared it to be perfectly clear to his mind that the only 
chance of penetrating the mystery of the Myrtle Room 
rested entirely on the discovery of some means of communi- 
cating with Mrs. Jazeph. He suggested that they should 
not trouble thenaselves to think of anything unconnected 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


191 


with the accomplishment of this purpose ; and he proposed 
that the servant then in attendance on him at West Winston 
—a man who had been in his employment for many years, 
and whose zeal, activity, and intelligence could be thor- 
oughly depended on— should be sent to Porthgenna forth- 
with, to start the necessary inquiries, and to examine the 
premises carefully on the north side of the house. 

This advice was immediately acted on. At an hour’s no- 
tice, the servant started for Cornwall, thoroughly instructed 
as to what he was to do, and well supplied with money, in 
case he found it necessary to employ many persons in mak- 
ing the proposed inquiries. In due course of time he sent 
a report of his proceedings to his master. It proved to be 
of a most discouraging nature. 

All trace of Mrs. Jazeph and her companion had been 
lost at the post-town of Porthgenna. Investigations had 
been made in every direction, but no reliable information 
had been obtained. People in totally different parts of the 
country declared readily enough that they had seen two 
persons answering to the description of the lady in the dark 
dress and the old foreigner; but when they were called 
upon to state the direction in which the two strangers were 
traveling, the answers received turned out to be of the 
most puzzling and contradictory kind No pains had been 
spared, no necessary expenditure of money had been 
grudged; but, so far, no results of the slightest value had 
been obtained. Whether the lady and the foreigner had 
gone east, west, north, or south, was more than Mr. Frank - 
land’s servant, at the present stage of the proceedings, 
could take it on himself to say. 

The report of the examination of the north rooms was 
not more satisfactory. Here, again, nothing of any im- 
portance could be discovered. The servant had ascer- 
tained that there were twenty-two rooms on the uninhab- 
ited side of the house-six on the ground-floor opening into 
the deserted garden, eight on the first floor, and eight 
above that, on the second story. He had examined all the 
doors carefully from top to bottom, and had come to the 
conclusion that none of them had been opened. The evi- 
dence afforded by the lady’s own actions led to nothing. 
She had, if the testimony of the servant could be trusted, 
dropped the keys on the floor of the hall. She was found, 
as the housekeeper and the steward asserted, lying, in a 
fainting condition, at the top of the landing of the flrst 
flight of stairs. The door opposite to her, in this position, 
showed no more traces of having been recently opened 
than any of the other doors of the other twenty-one rooms. 
Whether the room to which she wished to gain access was 
one of the eight on the first floor, or whether she had 


193 


THE DEAD SECRET 


fainted on her way up to the higher range of eight rooms 
on the second floor, it was impossible to determine. 

The only conclusions that could be fairly drawn from 
the events that had taken place in the house were two in 
number. First, it might be taken for granted that the lady 
had been disturbed before she had been able to use the 
keys to gain admission to the Myrtle Room. Secondly, it 
might be assumed, from the position in which she was 
found on the stairs, and from the evidence relating to the 
dropping of the keys, that the Myrtle Room was not on the 
ground floor, but was one of the sixteen rooms situated on 
the first and second stories. Beyond this the writer of the 
report had nothing further to mention, except that he had 
ventured to decide on waiting at Porthgenna, in the event 
of his master having any further instructions to communi- 
cate. 

What was to be done next? That was necessarily the 
first question suggested by the servant’s announcement of 
the unsuccessful result of his inquiries at Porthgenna. How 
it was to be answered was not very easy to discover. Mrs. 
Frankland had nothing to suggest, Mr. Frankland had 
nothing to suggest, the doctor had nothing to suggest. The 
more industriously they all three hunted through their 
minds for a new idea, the less chance there seemed to be of 
their succeeding in finding one. At last, Rosamond pro- 
posed, in despair, that they should seek the advice of some 
fourth person who could be depended on ; and asked her 
husband’s permission to write a confidential statement of 
their difficulties to the vicar of Long Beckley. Dr. Chen- 
nery was their oldest friend and adviser ; he had known 
them both as children ; he was well acquainted with the his- 
tory of their families ; he felt a fatherly interest in their 
fortunes; and he possessed that invaluable quality of plain, 
clear-headed common sense which marked him out as the 
very man who would be most likely, as well as most will- 
ing, to help them. 

Mr. Frankland readily agreed to hk wife’s suggestion; 
and Rosamond wrote immediately to Doctor Chennery, 
informing him of everything that had happened since 
Mrs. Jazeph’s first introduction to her, and asking him 
for his opinion on the course of proceeding which it would 
be best for her husband and herself to adopt in the 
difficulty in which they were now placed. By return 
of post an answer was received, which amply justified 
Rosamond’s reliance on her old friend. Doctor Chennery 
not only sympathized heartily with the eager curiosit}^ 
which Mrs. Jazeph’s language and conduct had excited in 
the mind of his correspondent, but he had also a plan of 


THE DEAD SECRET. 193 

his own to propose for ascertaining the position of the 
Myrtle Boom. 

The vicar prefaced his suggestion by expressing a strong 
opinion against instituting any further search after Mrs. 
Jazeph. Judging by the circumstances, as they were 
related to him, he considered that it would be the merest 
waste of time to attempt to find her out. Accordingly he 
passed from that part of the subject at once, and devoted 
himself to the consideration of the more important question 
—How Mr. and Mrs. Frankland were to proceed in the 
endeavor to discover for themselves the mystery of the 
Myrtle Room? 

On this point Dr. Chennery entertained a conviction of 
the strongest kind, and he warned Rosamond beforehand 
that she must expect to be very much surprised when he 
came to the statement of it. Taking it for granted that 
she and her husband could not hope to find out where the 
room was, unless they were assisted by some one better ac- 
quainted than themselves with the old local arrangements 
of the interior of Porthgenna Tower, the vicar declared it 
to be his opinion that there was only one individual living 
who could afford them the information they wanted, and 
that this person was no other than Rosamond’s own cross- 
grained relative, Andrew Treverton. 

This startling opinion Dr. Chennery supported by two 
reasons. In the first place, Andrew was the only surviving 
member of the elder generation who had Lived at Porth- 
genna Tower in the by -gone days when all traditions con- 
nected with the north rooms were still fresh in the mem- 
ories of the inhabitants of the house. The people who 
lived in it now were strangers, who had been placed in 
their situations by Mr. Frankland’s father; and the serv- 
ants employed in former days by Captain Treverton were 
dead or dispersed. The one available person, therefore, 
whose recollections were likely to be of any service to Mr. 
and M]*s. Frankland, was indisputably the brother of the 
old owner of Porthgenna Tower. 

In the second place, there was the chance, even if Andrew 
Treverton’s memory was not to be trusted, that he might 
possess written or printed information relating to the 
locality of the Myrtle Room. By his father’s will— which 
had been made when Andrew was a young man just going 
to college, and which had not been altered at the period of 
his departure from England, or at any after-time — he had 
inherited the choice old collection of books in the library 
at Porthgenna. Supposing that he still preserved these 
heir-looms, it was highly probable that there might exist 
among them some plan, or some description of the house 
as it was in the olden time, which would supply all the 


194 


THE DEAD SECRET 


information that was wanted. Here, then, was another 
valid reason for believing that if a clew to the position of 
the Myrtle Boom existed anywhere, Andrew ’Treverton 
was the man to lay his hand on it. 

Assuming it, therefore, to be proved that the surly old 
misanthrope was the only person who could be profitably 
applied to for the requisite information, the next question 
was: How to communicate with him? The vicar under 
stood perfectly that after Andrew’s inexcusably heartless 
conduct toward her father and mother, it was quite im- 
possible for Rosamond to address any direct application to 
him. The obstacle, however, might be surmounted by 
making the necessary communication proceed from Dr. 
Chennery. Heartily as the vicar disliked Andrew Trever- 
ton personally, and strongly as he disapproved of the old 
misanthrope’s principles, he was willing to set aside his 
own antipathies and objections to serve the interests of his 
young friends ; and he expressed his perfect readiness to 
write and recall himself to Andrew’s recollection, and to 
ask, as if it was a matter of antiquarian curiosity, for in- 
formation on the subject of the north side of Porthgenna 
Tower — including, of course, a special request to be made 
acquainted with the names by which the rooms had been 
individually known in former days. 

In making this offer, the vicar frankly acknowledged 
that he thought the chances were very much against his 
receiving any answer at all to his application, no matter 
how carefully he might word it, with a view to humoring 
Andrew’s churlish "peculiarites. However, considering 
that in the present posture of affairs, a forlorn hope was 
better than no hope at all, he thought it was at least worth 
while to make the attempt on the plan which he had just 
suggested. If Mr. and Mrs. Frankland could devise any 
better means of opening communications with Andrew 
Treverton, or if they had discovered any new method of 
their own for obtaining the information of which they 
stood in need. Dr. Chennery was perfectly ready to set 
aside his own opinions and to defer to theirs. 

A very brief consideration of the vicar’s friendly letter 
convinced Rosamond and her husband that they had no 
choice but gratefully to accept the offer which it contained. 
The chances were certainly against the success of the pro- 
posed application; but were they more unfavorable than 
the chances against the success of any unaided investiga- 
tions at Porthgenna? There was, at least, a faint hope of 
Dr. Chennery ’s request for information producing some 
results ; but there seemed no hope at all of penetrating a 
mystery connected with one room only, by dint of wander- 
ing, in perfect ignorance of what to search for, through 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


195 


two ranges of rooms which reached the number of sixteen. 
Influenced by these considerations, Rosamond wrote back 
to the vicar to thank him for his kindness, and to beg that 
he would communicate with Andrew Treverton, as he had 
proposed, without a moment’s delay. 

Dr. Chennery immediately occupied himself in the com- 
position of the important letter, taking care to make the 
application on purely antiquarian grounds, and accounting 
for his assumed curiosity on the subject of the interior of 
Porthgenna Tower by referring to his former knowledge 
of the Treverton family, and to his natural interest in the 
old house with which their name and fortunes had been so 
closely connected. After appealing to Andrew’s early rec- 
ollections for the information that he wanted, he ventured 
a step further, and alluded to the library of old books, 
mentioning his own idea that there might be found among 
them some plan, or verbal description of the house, which 
might prove to Ido of the greatest service, in the event of 
Mr. Treverton ’s memory not having preserved all particu- 
lars in connection with the names and positions of the 
north rooms. In conclusion, he took the liberty of men- 
tioning that the loan of any document of the kind to which 
he had alluded, or the permission to have extracts made 
from it, would be thankfully acknowledged as a great favor 
conferred ; and he added, in a postscript, that, m order to 
save Mr. Treverton all trouble, a messenger would call for 
any answer he might be disposed to give the day after the 
delivery of the letter. Having completed the application 
in these terms, the vicar inclosed it under cover to his man 
of business in London, with directions that it was to be de- 
livered by a trustworthy person, and that the messenger 
was to call again the next morning to know if there was 
any answer. 

Three days after this letter had been dispatched to its 
destination— at which time no tidings of any sort had been 
received from Dr. Chennery — Rosamond at last obtained 
her medical attendant’s permission to travel. Taking 
leave of Mr. Orridge, with many promises to let him know 
what progress they made toward discovering the Myrtle 
Room, Mr. and Mrs. Frankland turned their backs on 
West Winston, and for the third time started on the jour- 
ney to Porthgenna Tower. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 

It was baking-day in the establishment of Mr. Andrew 
Treverton when the messenger intrusted with Dr. Chen- 
nery’s letter found his way to the garden door of the cot- 


196 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


tage at Bays water. After he had rung three times, he 
heard a gruff voice, on the other side of the wall, roaring 
at him to let the bell alone, and asking who he was, and 
what the devil he wanted. 

“A letter for Mr. Treverton,” said the messenger, 
nervously backing away from the door while he spoke. 

“Chuck it over the wall, then, and be off with you!” 
answered the gruff voice. 

The messenger obeyed both injunctions. He was a meek, 
modest, elderly man ; and when Nature mixed up the in- 
gredients of his disposition, the capability of resenting in- 
juries was not among them. 

The man with the gruff voice— or, to put it in plainer 
terms, the man Shrowl— picked up the letter, weighed it 
in his hand, looked at the address on it with an expression 
of contemptuous curiosity in his bull-terrier eyes, put it in 
his waistcoat pocket, and walked around lazily to the 
kitchen entrance of the cottage. 

In the apartment which would probably have been called 
the pantry if the house had belonged to civilized tenants, 
a hand-mill had been set up ; and, at the moment when 
Shrowl made his way to this room, Mr. Treverton was en- 
gaged in asserting his independence of all the millers in 
England by grinding his own corn. He paused irritably in 
turning the handle of the mill when his servant appeared 
at the door. 

“ What do you come here for?” he asked. “ When the 
flour’s ready, I’ll call for you. Don’t let’s look at each 
other of tener than we can help ! I never set eyes on you, 
Shrowl, but I ask myself whether, in the whole range of 
creation, there is any animal as ugly as man? I saw a cat 
this morning on the garden wall, and there wasn’t a single 
point in which you would bear comparison with him. The 
cat’s eyes were clear — yours are muddy. The cat’s nose 
was straight — yours is crooked. The cat’s whiskers were 
clean— yours are dirty. The cat’s coat fitted him— yours 
hangs about you like a sack. I tell you again, Shrowl, the 
species to which you (and I) belong is the ugliest on the 
whole face of creation. Don’t let us revolt each other by 
keeping in company any longer. Go away, you last, 
worst, infirmest freak of "Nature — go away!” 

Shrowl listened to this complimentary address with an 
aspect of surly serenity. When it had come to an end, he 
took the letter from his waistcoat pocket, without conde- 
scending to make any reply. He was, by this time, too 
thoroughly conscious of his "own power over his master to 
attach the smallest importance to anything Mr. Treverton 
might say to him. 

“ Now you’ve done your talking, suppose you take a look 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


197 


at that,” said Shrowl, dropping the letter carelessly on a 
deal table by his master’s side. “It isn’t often that people 
trouble thernselves to send letters to you— is it? I wonder 
whether your niece has took a fancy to write to you? It 
was put in the papers the other day that she’d got a son and 
heir. Open the letter, and see if it’s an invitation to the 
christening. The company would be sure to want your 
smiling face at the table to make ’em jolly. Just let me 
take a grind at the mill, while you go out and get a silver 
mug. The son and heir expects a mug, you know, and his 
nurse expects half a guinea, and his mamma expects all 
your fortune. What a pleasure to make the three innocent 
creeturs happy! It’s shocking to see you pulling wry 
faces, like that, over the letter. Lord ! lord 1 where can all 
your natural affection have gone to ” 

“If I only knew where to lay my hand on a gag, I’d 
cram it into your infernal mouth I” cried Mr. Treverton. 
“ How dare you talk to me about my niece? You wretch! 
you know I hate her for her mother’s sake. What do you 
mean by harping perpetually on my fortune? Sooner than 
leave it to the play-actress’ child, I’d even leave it to you; 
and sooner than leave it to you, I would take every farthing 
of it out in a boat, and bury it forever at the bottom of the 
sea!” Venting his dissatisfaction in these strong terms, 
Mr. Treverton snatched up Dr. Chennery’s letter, and tore 
it open in a humor which by no means promised favorably 
for the success of the vicar’s application. 

He read the letter with an ominous scowl on his face, 
which grew darker and darker as he got nearer and nearer 
to the end. When he came to the signature his humor 
changed, and he laughed sardonically. “ Faithfully yours, 
Robert Chennery,” he repeated to himself. “Yes! faith' 
fully mine, if I humor your whim. And what if I don’t, 
parson?” He paused, and looked at the letter again, the 
scowl reappearing on his face as he did so. “There’s a 
lie of some kind lurking about under these lines of fair 
writing,” he muttered, suspiciously, “i am not one of 
his congregation ; the law gives him no privilege of impos- 
ing on me. What does he mean by making the attempt?” 
He stopped again, reflected a little, looked up suddenly at 
Shrowl, and said to him: 

“ Have you lit the oven fire yet?” 

“ No, I haven’t,” answered Shrowl. 

Mr. Treverton examined the letter for the third time — 
hesitated — then slowly tore it in half, and tossed the two 
pieces over contemptuously to his servant. 

“Light the fire at once,” he said. “And, if you want 
paper, there it is for you. Stop!” he added, after Shrowl 
had picked up the torn letter. “ If anybody comes here 


198 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


to-morrow morning to ask for an answer, tell them I gave 
you the letter to light the fire with, and say that’s the an- 
swer.” With those words Mr. Treverton returned to the 
mill, and began to grind at it again, with a gtin of mali- 
cious satisfaction on his haggard face. 

Shrowl withdrew into the kitchen, closed the door, and, 
placing the torn pieces of the letter together on the dresser, 
applied himself, with the coolest deliberation, to the busi- 
ness of reading it. When he had gone slowly and carefully 
through it, from the address at the beginning to the name 
at the end, he scratched reflectively for a little while at his 
ragged beard, then folded the letter up carefully and put 
it in his pocket. 

“I’ll have another look at it later in the day,” he 
thought to himself, tearing off a piece of an old newspaper 
to light the fire with. “ It strikes me just at present, that 
there may be better things done wifh this letter than burn- 
ing it. ’ ’ 

Eesolutely abstaining from taking the letter out of his 
pocket again until all the duties of the household for that 
day had been duly performed, Shrowl lit the fire, occupied 
the morning in making and baking the bread, and pa- 
tiently took his turn afterward at digging in the kitchen 
garden. It was four o’clock in the afternoon before he felt 
himself at liberty to think of his private affairs, and to 
venture on retiring into solitude witli the object of secretly 
looking over the letter once more. 

A second perusal of Dr. Chennery’s unlucky application 
to Mr. Treverton helped to confirm Shrowl in his resolu- 
tion not to destroy the letter. With great pains and per- 
severance, and much incidental scratching at his beard, he 
contrived to make himself master of three distinct points 
in it, which stood out, in his estimation, as possessing 
prominent and serious importance. 

The first point which he contrived to establish clearly in 
his mind was that the person who signed the name of 
Robert Chennery was desirous of examining a plan, or 
printed account, of the north side of the interior of a cer- 
tain old house in Cornwall, called Porthgenna Tower. The 
second point appeared to resolve itself into this, that Rob- 
ert Chennery believed some such plan or printed account 
might be found among the collection of books belong- 
ing to Mr. Treverton. The third point was that this same 
Robert Chennery would receive the loan of the plan or 
printed account as one of the greatest favors that could be 
conferred on him. Meditating on the latter fact, with an 
eye exclusively fixed on the contemplation of his own in- 
terests, Shrowl arrived at the conclusion that it might be 
well worth his while, in a pecuniary point of view, to try 


THE DEAD SECRET 


190 


if he could not privately place himself in a position to 
oblige Eobert Chennery by searching in secret among his 
master’s books. “It might be worth a five-pound note to 
me, if I managed it well,” thought Shrowl, putting the 
letter back in his pocket again, and ascending the stairs 
thoughtfully to the lumber-rooms at the top of the house. 

These rooms were two in number, were entirely unfur- 
nished, and were littered all over with the rare collection 
of books which had once adorned the library at Porth- 
genna Tower. Covered with dust, and scattered in all di- 
rections and positions over the floor, lay hundreds and 
hundreds of volumes, cast out, of their packing-cases as 
coals are cast out of their sacks into a cellar. Ancient 
books, which students would have treasured as priceless, 
lay in chaotic equality of neglect side by side with modern 
publications whose chief merit was the beauty of the bind- 
ing by which they were inclosed. Into this wilderness of, 
scattered volumes Shrowl now wandered, fortified by the 
supreme self-possession of ignorance, to search resolutely 
for one particular book, with no other light to direct him 
than the faint glimmer of the two guiding words — Forth- 
genna Tower. Having' got them firmly fixed in his mind, 
his next object was to search until he found them printed 
on the first page of any one of the hundreds of volumes 
that lay around him. This was, for the time being, em- 
phatically his business in life, and there he now stood, in 
the largest of the two attics, doggedly prepared to do it. 

He cleared away space enough with his feet to enable 
him to sit down comfortably on the floor, and then began 
to look over all the books that lay within arm’s-length of 
him. Odd volumes of rare editions of the classics, odd 
volumes of the English historians, odd volumes of plays 
by the Elizabethan dramatists, books of travel, books of 
sermons, books of jests, books of natural history, books of 
sport, turned up in quaint and rapid succession; but no 
book containing on the title-page the words ‘ ‘ Porthgenna 
Tower” rewarded the searching industry of Shrowl for 
the first ten minutes after he had sat himself down on the 
floor. 

Before removing to another position, and contending 
with a fresh accumulation of literary lumber, he paused 
and considered a little with himself, whether there might 
not be some easier and more orderly method than any he 
had yet devised of working his way through the scattered 
mass of volumes which yet remained to be examined. The 
result of his reflections was that it would be less confusing 
to him if he searched through the books in all parts of the 
room indifferently, regulating his selection of them solely 
by their various sizes ; disposing of all the largest to begin 


200 


THE DEAD SECEET, 


with; then, after stowing thenn away together, proceeding 
to the next largest, and so going on until he came down at 
last to the pocket volumes. Accordingly, he cleared awa}^ 
another morsel of vacant space near the wall, and then, 
trampling over the books as coolly as if they were so many 
clods of earth on a plowed field, picked out the largest of 
all the volumes that lay on the floor. 

It was an atlas; Shrowl turned over the maps, reflected, 
shook his head, and removed the volume to the vacant 
space which he had cleared close to the wall. 

The next largest book, was a magnificently bound collec" 
tion of engraved portraits of distinguished characters. 
Shrowl saluted the distinguished characters with a grunt 
of Gothic disapprobation, and carried them off to keep the 
atlas company against the wall. 

The third largest book lay under several others. It pro- 
jected a little at one end, and it was bound in scarlet 
morocco. In another position, or bound in a quieter color, 
it would probably have escaped notice. Shrowl drew it out 
with some difficulty, opened it with a portentous frown of 
distrust, looked at the title-page — and suddenly slapped his 
thigh with a great oath of exultation. There were the very 
two words of which he was in search, staring him in the 
face, as it were, with all the emphasis of the largest capi- 
tal letters. 

He took a step toward the door to make sure that his 
master was not moving in the house; then checked him- 
self and turned back. ‘ ‘ What do I care, ’ ’ thought Shrowl, 
“ whether he sees me or not? If it comes to a tussle be- 
twixt us which is to have his own way, I know who’s mas- 
ter and who’s servant in the house by this time.” Com- 

^ himself with that reflection, he turned to the first 
the book, with the intention of looking it over care- 
fully, page by page, from beginning to end. 

The first leaf was a blank. The second leaf had an in- 
scription written at the top of it, in faded ink, which con- 
tained these words and initials : ‘ ‘ Eare. Only six copies 
printed. J. A. T. ” Below, on the middle of the leaf, was 
the printed dedication: “To John Arthur Treverton, 
Esquire, Lord of the Manor of Porthgenna, One of his 
Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, P. E. S., etc., etc., etc., 
this work, in which an attempt is made to describe the 

ancient and honored Mansion of his Ancestors ” There 

were many more lines, filled to bursting with aU the largest 
and most obsequious words to be found in the dictionary ; 
but Shrowl wisely abstained from giving himself the 
trouble of reading them, and turned over at once to the 
title-page. There were all the important words: “The 
History and Antiquities of Porthgenna Tower. From 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


201 


the period of its first erection to the present time ; com- 
prising interesting genealogical particulars relating to the 
Treverton family; with an inquiry into the Origin of 
Gothic Architecture, and a few thoughts on the Theory of 
Fortification after the period of the Norman Conquest. By 
the Eeverend Job Dark, D. D., Eector of Porthgenna. The 
whole adorned with Portraits, Views, and Plans, executed 
in the highest style of art. Not published. Printed by 
Spaldock and Grimes, Truro, 1734.” 

That was the title-page. The next leaf contained an en- 
graved view of Porthgenna Tower from the West. Then 
came several pages devoted to the Origin of Gothic Archi- 
tecture. Then more pages, explaining the Norman Theory 
of Fortification. These were succeeded by another en- 
graving— Porthgenna Tower from the East. After that 
followed more reading, under the title of The Treverton 
Family; and then came the third engraving — Porthgenna 
Tower from the North. Shrowl paused there, and looked 
with interest at the leaf opposite the print. It only an- 
nounced more reading still, about the Erection of the Man- 
sion ; and this was succeeded by engravings from family 
portraits in the gallery of Porthgenna. Placing his left 
thumb between the leaves to mark the place, Shrowl im- 
patiently turned to the end of the book, to see what he 
could find there. The last leaf contained a plan of the 
stables ; the leaf before that presented a plan of the north 
garden; and on the next leaf, turning backward, was the 
very thing described in Robert Chennery’s letter — a plan 
of the interior arrangement of the north side of the house ! 
Shrowl’s first impulse on making this discovery was to 
carry the book away to the safest hiding-place he could 
find for it, preparatory to secretly offering it for sale 
when the messenger called the next morning for an an- 
swer to the letter. A little reflection, however, convinced 
him that a proceeding of this sort bore a dangerously close 
resemblance to the act of thieving, and might get him into 
trouble if the person with whom he desired to deal asked him 
any preliminary questions touching his right to the vol- 
ume wliich he wanted to dispose of. The only alternative 
that remained was to make the best copy he could of the 
Plan, and to traffic with that, as a document which the 
most scrupulous person in the world need not hesitate to 
purchase. 

Resolving, after some consideration, to undergo the 
trouble of making the copy rather than run the risk of 
purloining the book, Shrowl descended to the kitchen, 
took from one of the drawers of the dresser an old stump 
of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a crumpled half sheet of 
dirty letter-paper, and returned to the garret to copy the 


202 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


Plan as he best might. It was of the simplest kind, and it 
occupied but a small portion of the page; yet it presented 
to his eyes a hopelessly involved and intricate appearance 
when he now examined it for the second time. 

The rooms were represented by rows of small squares, 
with names neatly printed inside them ; and the positions 
of doors, staircases, and passages were indicated by par- 
allel lines of various lengths and breadths. After much 
cogitation, frowning, and pulling at his beard, it occurred 
to Shrowl that the easiest method of copying the plan 
would be to cover with the letter-paper— which, though 
hardly half the size of the page, was large enough to spread 
over the engraving on it — and then to trace the lines which 
he saw through the paper as carefully as he could with his 
pen and ink. He puffed and snorted and grumbled, and 
got red in the face over his task ; but he accomplished it 
at last— bating certain drawbacks in the shape of blots and 
smears— in a sufidciently creditable manner ; then stopped 
to let the ink dry and to draw his breath freely, before he 
attempted to do anything more. 

The next obstacle to be overcome consisted in the diffi- 
culty of copying the names of the rooms, which were 
printed inside the squares. Fortunately for Shrowl, who 
was one of the clumsiest of mankind in the use of the pen, 
none of the names were very long. As it was, he found 
the greatest difficulty in writing them in sufficiently small 
characters to fit into the squares. One name in particular 
— that of the Myrtle Room — presented combinations of 
letters, in the word “ Myrtle,” which tried his patience and 
his fingers sorely, when he attempted to reproduce them. 
Indeed the result, in this case, when- he had done his best, 
was so illegible, even to his eyes, that he wrote the word 
over again in larger characters at the top of the page, and 
connected it by a wavering line with the square which 
represented the Myrtle Room. The same accident hap- 
pened to him in two other instances, and was remedied in 
the same way. With the rest of the names, however, he 
succeeded better ; and when he had finally completed the 
business of transcription by writing the title, “ Plan of the 
North Side,” his copy presented, on the whole, a more re- 
spectable appearance than might have been anticipated. 
After satisfying himself of its accuracy by a careful com- 
parison of it with the original, he folded it up along with 
Dr. Chennery’s letter, and deposited it in liis pocket with 
a hoarse gasp of relief and a grim smile of satisfaction. 

The next morning the garden door of the cottage pre- 
sented itself to the public eye in the totally new aspect of 
standing hospitably ajar ; and one of the bare posts had the 
advantage of being embellished by the figure of Shrowl, 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


203 


who leaned against it easily, with his legs crossed, his 
hands in his pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, looking 
out for the return of the messenger who had delivered Dr. 
Chennery’s letter the day before. 


CHAPTER III. 

APPROACHING THE PRECIPICE. 

Traveling from London to Poi-thgenna, Mr. and Mrs. 
Frankland had stopped, on the ninth of May, at the West 
Winston station. On the eleventh of June they left it 
again to continue their journey to Cornwall. On the thir- 
teenth, after resting two nights upon the road, they ar- 
rived toward the evening at Perth genna Tower. 

There had been storm and rain all the morning; it had 
lulled toward the afternoon, and at the hour when they 
reached the house the wind had dropped, a thick white fog 
hid the sea from view, and sudden showers fell drearily 
from time to time over the sodden land. Not even a soli- 
tary idler from the village was hanging about the west ter- 
race as the carriage containing Mr. and Mrs. Frankland, 
the baby, and the two servants, drove up to the house. 

No one was waiting with the door open to receive the 
travelers; for all hope of their arriving on that day had 
been given up, and the ceaseless thundering of the surf, as 
the stormy sea surged in on the beach beneath, drowned 
the roll of the carriage-wheels over the terrace road. The 
driver was obliged to leave his seat and ring at the bell for 
admittance. A minute or more elapsed before the door 
was opened. With the rain falling sullen and steady on 
the roof of the carriage, with the raw dampness of the at- 
mosphere penetrating through all coverings and defenses, 
with the booming of the surf sounding threateningly near 
in the dense obscurity of the fog, the young couple waited 
for admission to their own home, as strangers might have 
waited who had called at an ill-chosen time. 

When the door was opened at last, the master and mis- 
tress, whom the servants would have welcomed with the 
proper congratulations on any other occasion, were now re- 
ceived with the proper apologies instead. Mr. Munder, 
Mrs. Pentreath, Betsey, and Mr. Frankland ’s man all 
crowded together in the hall, and all begged pardon con- 
fusedly for not having been ready at the door when the car- 
riage drove up. The appearance of the baby changed the 
conventional excuses of the housekeeper and the maid into 
conventional expressions of admiration; but the men re 
mained grave and gloomy, and spoke of the miserable 
weather apologetically, as if the rain and the fog had been 
of their own making. 


204 


THE HEAD SECRET 


The reason for their persistency in dwelling on this one 
dreary topic came out while Mr. and Mrs. Frankland 
were being conducted up the west staircase. The storm 
of the morning had been fatal to three of the Forth genna 
fishermen, who had been lost with their boat at sea, 
and whose death had thrown the whole village into 
mourning. The servants had done nothing but talk of 
the catastrophe ever since the intelligence of it had 
reached them early in the afternoon; and Mr. Munder 
now thought it his duty to explain that the absence of the 
villagers, on the occasion of the arrival of his master 
and mistress, was entirely attributable to the effect 
produced among the little community by the wreck of 
the fishing-boat. Under any less lamentable circumstances 
the west terrace would have been crowded, and the 
appearance of the carriage would have been welcomed 
with cheers. 

“ Lenny, I almost wish we had waited a little longer 
before we came here,” whispered Rosamond, nervously 
pressing her husband’s .arm. “It is very dreary and 
disheartening to return to my first home on such a day 
as this. That story of the poor fishermen is a sad story, 
love, to welcome me back to the place of my birth. Let 
us send the first thing to -morrow morning, and see 
what we can do for the poor helpless women and 
children. I shall not feel easy in my mind, after hearing 
that story, till we have done something to comfort them.” 

“I trust you will approve of the repairs, ma’am,” said 
the housekeeper, pointing to the staircase which led to the 
second story. 

“The repairs?” said Rosamond, absently. “Repairs! 
I never hear the word now, without thinking of the north 
rooms, and of the plans we devised for getting my poor 
dear father to live in them. Mrs. Pentreath, I have a host 
of questions to ask you and Mr. Munder about all the ex- 
traordinary things that happened when the mysterious 
lady and the incomprehensible foreigner came here. But 
tell me first — this is the west front, I suppose?— how far 
are we from the north rooms? I mean, how long would it 
take us to get to them, if we wanted to go now to that part 
of the house?” 

“Oh, dear me, ma’am! not five minutes!” answered 
Mrs. Penthreath. 

“ Not five minutes!” repeated Rosamond, whispering to 
her husband again. “Do you hear that Lenny? In five 
minutes we might be in the Myrtle Room !” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Frankland, smiling, “in our present 
state of ignorance, we are just as far from it as if we were 
ut West Winston still.” 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


205 


“I can’t think that, Lennj^. It may be only my fancy, 
but now we are on the spot I feel as if we had driven the 
mystery into its last hiding-place. We are actually in the 
house that holds the Secret; and nothing will persuade me 
that we are not half way already toward finding it out. 
But don’t let us stop on this cold landing. Which way are 
we to go next?” 

‘ This way, ma’am,” said Mr. Munder, seizing the first 
opportunity of placing himself in a prominent position. 
” There is a fire in the drawing-room. Will you allow me 
the honor of leading and conducting you, sir, to the apart- 
ment in question?” he added, officiously stretching out his 
hand to Mr. Frankland. 

“Certainly not!” interposed Eosamond, sharply. She 
had noticed with her usual quickness of observation that 
Mr. Munder wanted the delicacy of feeling which ought to 
have restrained him from staring curiously at his blind 
master in her presence, and she was unfavorably disposed 
toward him in consequence. “ Wherever the apartment in 
question may happen to be,” she continued, with satirical 
emphasis, “I will lead Mr. Frankland to it, if you please. 
If you want to make yourself useful, you had better go on 
before us, and open the door.” 

Outwardly crest-fallen, but inwardly indignant, Mr. 
Munder led the way to the drawing-room. The fire burned 
brightly, the old-fashioned furniture displayed itself to the 
most picturesque advantage, the paper on the walls looked 
comfortably mellow, the carpet, faded as it was, felt soft 
and warm under- foot. Eosamond led her husband to an 
easy-chair by the fireside, and began to feel at home for 
the first time. 

“This looks really comfortable, ” she said. “When we 
have shut out that dreary white fog, and the candles are 
lighted, and the tea is on the table, we shall have nothing 
in the world to complain of. You enjoy this nice, warm 
atmosphere, don’t you Lenny? There is a piano in the 
room, my dear; I can play to you in the evening at Porth- 
genna just as I used in London. Nurse, sit down and 
make yourself and the baby as comfortable as you can. 
Before we take our bonnets off, I must go away with Mrs. 
Pentreath and see about the bedrooms. What is your, 
name, you very rosy, good-natured- looking girl? Betsey, 
is it? Well, then, Betsey, suppose you go down and get 
the tea ; and we shall like you all the better if you can 
contrive to bring us some cold meat with it.” Giving her 
orders in those good-humored terms, and not noticing that 
her husband looked a little uneasy while she was talking so 
familiarly to a servant, Eosamond left the room in com- 
pany with Mrs. Pentreath. 






THE DEAD SECRET. 


When she returned, her face and manner were altered : 
she looked and spoke seriously and quietly. 

‘ ‘ I hope I have arranged everything for the best, Lenny, ” 
she said. “The airiest and largest room, Mrs. Pentreath 
tells me, is the room in which my mother died. But I 
thought we had better not make use of that ; I felt as if it 
chilled and saddened me only to look at it. Further on, 
along the passage, there is a room that was my nursery. I 
almost fancied, when Mrs. Pentreath told me she had heard 
I used to sleep there, that I remembered the pretty little 
arched doorway leading into the second room — the night- 
nursery it used to be called in former years. I have ordered 
the fire to be lighted there, and the beds to be made. 
There is a third room on the right hand, which communi- 
cates with the day- nursery. I think we might manage to 
establish ourselves very comfortably in the three rooms — if 
you felt no objection — though they are not so large or so 
grandly furnished as the company bedrooms. I will change 
the arrangements, if you like ; but the house looks rather 
lonesome and dreary, just at first — and my heart warms to 
the old nursery— and I think we might at least try it, to 
begin with, don’t you, Lenny?” 

Mr. Frankland was quite of his wife’s opinion, and was 
ready to accede to any domestic arrangements that she 
might think fit to make. While he was assuring her of 
this the tea came up, and the sight of it helped to restore 
Rosamond to her usual spirits. When the meal was over, 
she occupied herself in seeing the baby comfortably estab- 
lished for the night, in the room on the right hand which 
communicated with the day -nursery. That maternal duty 
performed, she came back to her husband in the drawing- 
room; and the conversation between them turned — as it 
almost always turned now when they were alone — on the 
two perplexing subjects of Mrs. Jazeph and the Myrtle 
Room. 

“I wish it was not night,” said Rosamond. “ I should 
like to begin exploring at once. Mind, Lenny, you must 
be with me in all my investigations. I lend you my eyes, 
and you give me your advice. You must never lose pa- 
tience, and never tell me that you can be of no use. How 
I do wish we were starting on our voyage of discovery at 
this very moment ! But we may make inquiries, at any 
rate,” she continued, ringing the bell. “ Let us have the 
housekeeper and the steward up, and try if we can’t make 
them tell us something more than they told us in their let- 
ter.” 

The bell was answered by Betsey. Rosamond desired 
that Mr. Munder and Mrs. Pentreath might be sent up- 
stairs. Betsey having heard Mrs. Frankland express h^r 


THE DEAD SECEET. 


207 


intention of questioning the housekeeper and the steward, 
guessed why they were wanted, and smiled mysteriously. 

“ Did you see anything of those strange visitors who be- 
haved so oddly?” asked Eosamond, detecting the smile. 
“Yes, I am sure you did. Tell us what you saw. We 
want to hear everything that happened — everything, down 
to the smallest trifle.” 

Appealed to in these direct terms, Betsey contrived with 
much circumlocution and confusion, to relate what her own 
personal experience had been of the proceedings of Mrs. 
Jazeph and her foreign companion. When she had done, 
Eosamond stopped her on her way to the door by asking 
this question : 

“You say the lady was found lying in a fainting-fit at 
the top of the stairs. Have you any notion, Betsey, why 
she fainted?” 

The servant hesitated. 

“Come! come!” said Eosamond. “You have some 
notion, I can see. Tell us what it is.” 

“I’m afraid you will be angry with me, ma’am,” said 
Betsey, expressing embarrassment by drawing lines slowly 
with her forefinger on a table at her side. 

“ Nonsense! I shall only be angry with you if you won’t 
speak. Why do you think the lady fainted?” 

Betsey drew a very long line with her embarrassed fore- 
finger, wiped it afterward on her apron, and answered : 

“I think she fainted, if you please, ma’am, because she 
see the ghost.” 

“The ghost! What! is there a ghost in the house? 
Lenny, here is a romance that we never expected. What 
sort of ghost is it? Let us have the whole story.” 

The whole story, as Betsey told it, was not of a nature to 
afford her hearers any extraordinary information, or to 
keep them very long in suspense. The ghost was a lady 
who had been at a remote period the wife of one of the 
owners of Forth genna Tower, and who had been guilty of 
deceiving her husband in some way unknown. She had 
been condemned in consequence to walk about the north 
rooms as long as ever the walls of them held together. She 
had long, curling, light-brown hair, and very white teeth, 
and a dimple in each cheek, and was altogether “awful 
beautiful ” to look at. Her approach was heralded to any 
mortal creature who was unfortunate enough to fall in her 
way by the blowing of a cold wind, and nobody wdio had 
once felt that wind had the slightest chance of ever feeling 
warm again.. That was all Betsey knew about the ghost ; 
and it was in her opinion enough to freeze a person’s blood 
only to think of it. 

Eosamond smiled, then looked grave again. “I wish 


20S 


THE DEAD SECRET. 

you could have told us a little more,” she said. “ But, as 
you cannot, we must try Mrs. Pentreath and Mr. Munder 
next. Send them up here, if you please, Betsey, as soon 
as you get down-stairs. ” 

The examination of the housekeeper and the steward led 
to no result whatever. Nothing more than they had al- 
ready communicated in their letter to Mrs. Frankland 
could be extracted from either of them. Mr. Munder’s 
dominant idea was that the foreigner had entered the 
doors of Porthgenna Tower with felonious ideas on the 
subject of the family plate. Mrs. Pentreath concurred in 
that opinion, and mentioned, in connection with it, her 
own private impression that the lady in the quiet dress 
was an unfortunate person who had escaped from a mad- 
house. As to giving a word of advice, or suggesting a 
plan for solving the mystery, neither the housekeeper nor 
the steward appeared to think that the rendering of any 
assistance of that sort lay at all within their province. 
They took their own practical view of the suspicious con- 
duct of the two strangers, and no mortal power could per- 
suade them to look an inch beyond it. 

“Oh, the stupidity, the provoking, impenetrable, pre- 
tentious stupidity of respectable English servants!” ex- 
claimed Rosamond, when she and her husband were alone 
again. “No help, Lenny, to be hoped for from either of ■ 
those two people. We have nothing to trust to now but 
the examination of the house to-morrow; and that re- 
source may fail us, like the rest. What can Doctor Chen- 
nery be about? Why did we not hear from him before we | 
left West Winston?” 

“Patience, Rosamond, patience. We shall see what the ^ 
post brings to-morrow. ” i 

“Pray don’t talk about patience, dear! My stock of j 
that virtue was never a very large one, and it was all ex- ? 
hausted ten days ago, at least. Oh, the weeks and weeks 1 
I have been vainly asking myself — Why should Mrs. Jazeph 1 
warn me against going into the Myrtle Room? Is she 
afraid of my discovering a crime? or afraid of my tumbling 
through the floor? What did she want to do in the room, 
when she made that attempt to get into it? Why, in the I 
name of wonder, should she know something about this i 
house that I never knew, that my father never knew, that | 

nobody else ” * | 

“Rosamond!” cried Mr. Frankland, suddenly changing | 
color and starting in his chair— I think I can guess who % 
Mrs. Jazeph is!” ^ 

“ Good gracious, Lenny! What do you mean?” ^ 

“ Something in those last words of j^ours started the idea T 
in my mind the instant you spoke. Do you remember, S 


THE DEAD SECRET 


209 


when we were staying at St. Swifchin’s-on-Sea, and talking 
about the chances for and against our prevailing on your 
father to live with us here — do you remember, Rosamond, 
telling me at that time of certain unpleasant associations 
which he had with the house, and mentioning among 
them the mysterious disappearance of a servant on the 
morning of your mother’s death?” 

Rosamond turned pale at the question. ‘‘ How came we 
never to think of that before?” she said. 

“You told me,” pursued Mr. Frankland, “that this 
servant left a strange letter behind her, in which she con- 
fessed that your mother had charged her with the duty of 
telling a secret to your father— a secret that she was afraid 
to divulge, and that she was afraid of being questioned 
about. I am right, am I not, in stating those two reasons 
as the reasons she gave for her disappearance?” 

“ Quite right. ” 

“And your father never heard of her again?” 

“Never!” 

“ It is a bold guess to make, Rosamond, but the impres- 
sion is strong on my mind that, on the day when Mrs. 
Jazeph came into your room at West Winston, you and that 
servant met, and she knew it!” 

“ And the Secret, dear— the Secret she was afraid to tell 
my father?” 

“Must be in some way connected with the Myrtle 
Room.” 

Rosamond said nothing in answer. She rose from her 
chair, and began to walk agitatedly up and down the room. 
Hearing the rustle of her dress, Leonard called her to him, 
and, taking her hand, laid his fingers on her pulse, and 
then lifted them for a moment to her cheek. 

“ I wish I had waited until to-morrow morning before I 
told you my idea about Mrs. Jazeph,” he said. “ I have 
agitated you to no purpose whatever, and have spoiled 
your chance of a good night’s rest.” 

“No, no! nothing of the kind= Oh, Lenny, how this 
guess of yours adds to the interest — the fearful, breathless 
interest — we have in tracing that woman, and in finding 
out the Myrtle Room ! Do you think ?” 

‘ ‘ I have done with thinking for the night, my dear ; and 
you must have done with it too. We have said more than 
enough about Mrs. Jazeph already. Change the subject, 
and I will talk of anything else you please.” 

“It is not so easy to change the subject,” said Rosa- 
mond, pouting, and moving away to walk up and down 
the room again. 

‘ ‘ Then let us change the place, and make it easier that 
way. I know you think me the most provokingly obstinate 


210 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


man in the world ; but there is reason in my obstinacy, and 
you will acknowledge as much when you awake to-morrow 
morning, refreshed by a good night’s rest. Come, let us 
give our anxieties a holiday. Take me into one of the 
other rooms, and let me try if I can guess what it is like 
by touching the furniture. ’ ’ 

The reference to his blindness which the last words con- 
tained brought Rosamond to his side in a moment. “ You 
always know best,” she said, putting her arm round his 
neck and kissing him. “I was looking cross, love, a min- 
ute ago, but the clouds are all gone now. We will change 
the scene, and explore some other room, as you propose.” 

She paused ; her eyes suddenly sparkled, her color rose, 
and she smiled to herself as if some new fancy had that 
instant crossed her mind. 

“Lenny, I will take you where you shall touch a very 
remarkable piece of furniture, indeed,” she resumed, lead- 
ing him to the door while she spoke. “We will see if you 
can tell me at once what it is like. You must not be im- 
patient, mind ; and you must promise to touch nothing till 
you feel me guiding your hand.” 

She drew him after her along the passage, and opened 
the door of the room in which the baby had been put to 
bed, made a sign to the nurse to be silent, and, leading 
Leonard up to the cot, guided his hand down gently, so as 
to let the tips of his fingers touch the child’s cheek. 

“There, sir!” she cried, her face beaming with happi- 
ness as she saw the sudden flush of surprise and pleasure 
which changed her husband’s natural quiet, subdued ex- 
pression in an instant. ‘ ‘ What do you say to that piece of | 
furniture? Is it a chair, or a table? Or is it the most pre- 
cious thing in all the house, in ail Cornwall, in all England, ^ 
in all the world? Kiss it, and see what it is— a bust of a | 
baby by a sculptor, or a living cherub by your wife !” She | 
turned, laughing, to the nurse Hannah, you look so I 
serious that I am sure you must be hungry. Have you had % 
your supper yet?” The woman smiled, and answered that . • 

she had arranged to go down-stairs, as soon as one of the 
servants could relieve her in taking care of the child. % 
“Go at once,” said Rosamond. “I will stop here and i 
look after the baby. Get your supper, and come back j 
again in half an hour. ’ ’ ^ 

When the nurse had left the room, Rosamond placed a J 
chair for Leonard by the side of the cot, and seated her- ^ 
self on a low stool at his knees. Her variable disposition J 
seemed to change again when she did this; her face grew 5 
thoughtful, her eyes softened as they turned, now on her 
husband, now on the bed in which the child was sleeping : ' 
by his side. After a minute or two of silence, she took one | 


THE BEAD SECRET. 


211 


of his hands, placed it on his knee, and laid her cheek 
gently down on it. 

“Lenny,” she said, rather sadly, “I wonder whether 
we are any of us capable of feeling perfect happiness in this 
world?” 

“ What makes you ask that question, my dear?” 

“I fancy that I could feel perfect happiness, and 
yet—” 

“ And yet what?” 

“ And yet it seems as if, with all my blessings, that bless- 
ing was never likel}' to be granted to me. I should be per- 
fectly happy now but for one little thing. I suppose you 
can’t guess what that thing is?” 

“I would rather you told me, Kosamond.” 

“ Ever since our child was born, love, I have had a little 
aching at the heart — especially when we are all three to- 
gether, as we are now— a little sorrow that I can’t quite put 
away from me on your account.” 

“ On my account ! Lift up your head, Eosamond, and 
come nearer to me. I feel somethifig on my hand which 
tells me that you are crying.” 

She rose directly, and laid her face close to his. “My 
own love,” she said, clasping her arms fast round him.. 
“My own heart’s darling, you have never seen our child.” 

“ Yes, Eosamond, I see him with your eyes.” 

“ Oh, Lenny ! I tell you everything I can— I do my best 
to lighten the cruel, cruel darkness which shuts you out 
from that lovely little face lying so close to you! But can 
I tell you how he looks when he first begins to take notice? 
can I tell you all the thousand pretty things he will do 
when he first tries to talk? God has been very merciful 
to us— but, oh, hoAv much more heavily the sense of your 
affliction weighs on me now when I am more to you than 
your wife — now when I am the mother of your child 1” 

“ And yet that affliction ought to weigh lightly on your 
spirits, Eosamond, for you have made it weigh lightly on 
mine.” 

“Have I? Eeally and truly, have I? It is something 
noble to live for, Lenny, if I can live for that ! It is some 
comfort to hear you say, as you said just now, that you see 
with my eyes. They shall always serve you— oh, always ! 
always!— as faithfully as if they were your own. The 
veriest trifle of a visible thing that I look at with any in- 
terest, you shall as gopd as look at too. I might have had 
my own little harmless secrets, dear, with another hus- 
band ; but with you to have even so much as a thought in 
secret seems like taking the basest, the cruelest advantage 
of .your blindness. I do love you so, Lenny! I am so 
much fonder of you now than I was when we were first 


212 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


married— I never thought I should be, but I am. You are 
so much handsomer to me, so much cleverer to me, so 
much more precious to me in every way. But I am 
always telling you that, am I not? Do you get tired of 
hearing me? No? Are you sure of that? Very, very, 
very sure?” She stopped, and looked at him earnestly, 
with a smile on her lips, and the tears still glistening in 
her eyes. Just then the child stirred a little in his cot, 
and drew her attention away. She arranged the bed- 
clothes over him, watched him in silence for a little while, 
then sat down again on the stool at Leonard’s feet. “Baby 
has turned his face quite round toward you now,” she 
said. “Shall I tell you exactly how he looks, and what 
his bed is like, and how the room is furnished?” 

Without waiting for an answer, she began to describe 
the child’s appearance and position with the marvelous 
minuteness of a woman’s observation. While she pro- 
ceeded, her elastic spirits recovered themselves, and its 
naturally bright, happ^ expression reappeared on her face. 
By the time the nurse returned to her post, Rosamond was 
talking with all her accustomed vivacity, and amusing her 
husband with all her accustomed success. 

When they went back to the drawing-room, she opened 
the piano and sat down to play. ‘ ‘ I must give you your 
usual evening concert, Lenny,” she said, “or I shall be 
talking again on the forbidden subject of the Myrtle 
Room.” 

She played some of Mr. Frankland’s favorite airs, with 
a certain union of feeling and fancifulness in her execution 
of the music, which seemed to blend the charm of her own 
disposition with the charm of the melodies which sprung 
into life under her touch. After playing through the airs 
she could remember most easily, she ended with the last 
waltz of Weber. It was Leonard’s favorite, and it was al- 
ways reserved on that account to grace the close of the 
evening’s performance. 

She lingered longer than usual over the last plaintive 
notes of the waltz ; then suddenly left the piano, and has- 
tened across the room to the fireplace. 

“ Surely it has turned much colder within the last min- 
ute or two,” she said, kneeling down on the rug, and hold- 
ing her face and hands over the fire. 

“Has it?” returned Leonard. .“I don’t feel any 
change.” 

“ Perhaps I have caught cold,” said Rosamond. “Or, 
perhaps,” she added, laughing rather uneasily, “ the wind 
that goes before the ghostly lady of the north rooms has 
been blowing over me. I certainly felt something like a 


THE DEAD SECRET. 213 

sudden chill, Lenny, while I was playing the last notes of 
Weber.” 

“Nonsense, Rosamond. You are over-fatigued and over- 
excited. Tell your maid to make you some hot wine-and- 
water, and lose no time in getting to bed. ’ ’ 

Rosamond cowered closer over the fire. “It’s lucky I 
am not superstitious,” she said, “or I might fancy that I 
was predestined to see the ghost.” 


CHAPTER lY. 

STANDING ON THE BRINK. 

The first night at Porthgenna passed without the slight- 
est noise or interruption of any kind. No ghost, or dream 
of a ghost, disturbed the soundness of Rosamond’s slum- 
bers. She awoke in her usual spirits and her usual health, 
and was out in the west garden before breakfast. 

The sky was cloudy, and the wind veered about capri- 
ciously to all the points of the compass. In the course of 
her walk Rosamond met with the gardener, and asked 
him what he thought about the weather. The man replied 
J}hat it might rain again before noon, but that, unless he 
was very much mistaken, it was going to turn to heat in the 
course of the next four-and-twenty hours. 

“ Pray, did you ever hear of a room on the north side of 
our old house called the Myrtle Room?” inquired Rosa- 
mond. She had resolved, on rising that morning, not to 
lose a chance of making the all-important discovery for 
want of asking questions of everbody in the neighborhood ; 
and she began with the gardener accordingly. 

“ I never heard tell of it, ma’am,” said the man. “ But 
it is a likely name enough, considering how the myrtles do 
grow in these parts.” 

‘ ‘ Are there any myrtles growing at the north side of the 
house?” asked Rosamond, struck with the idea of tracing 
the mysterious room by searching for it outside the build- 
ing instead of inside ‘ ‘ I mean close to the walls, ’ ’ she 
added, seeing the man look puzzled ; “ under the windows, 
you know?” 

“ I never see anything under the windows in my time 
but weeds and rubbish,” replied the gardener. 

Just then the breakfast-bell rang. Rosamond returned 
to the house, determined to explore the north garden, and 
if she found any relic of a bed of myrtles to mark the win- 
dow above it, and to have the room which that window 
lighted opened immediately. She confided this new scheme 
to her husband. He complimented her on her ingenuity, 
but confessed that he had no great hope of any discoveries 


214 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


being made out of doors, after what the gardener had said 
about the weeds and rubbish. 

As soon as breakfast was over, Eosamond rang the bell 
to order the gardener to be in attendance, and to say that 
the keys of the north rooms would be wanted. The sum- 
mons was answered by Mr. Frankland’s servant, who 
brought up with him the morning’s supply of letters, which 
the postman had just delivered. Eosamond turned them 
over eagerly, pounced on one with an exclamation of de- 
light, and said to her husband — “ The Long Beckley post- 
mark ! News from the vicar, at last !” 

She opened the letter and ran her eye over it — then sud- 
denly dropped it in her lap with her face all in a glow. 
“ Lenny!” she exclaimed, “there is news here that is pos- 
itively enough to turn one’s head. I declare the vicar’s let- 
ter has quite taken away my breath!” 

“ Eead it,” said Mr. Frankland: “pray read it at once.” 
Eosamond complied with the request in a very faltering, 
unsteady voice. Dr. Chennery began his letter by an- 
nouncing that his application to Andrew Treverton had re- 
mained unanswered ; but he added that it had, neverthe- 
less, produced results which no one could possibly have 
anticipated. For information on the subject of those re- 
sults, he referred Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to a copy sub- 
joined of a communication marked private, which he had 
received from his man of business in London. 

The communication contained a detailed report of an in- 
terview which had taken place between Mr. Treverton’ s 
servant and the messenger who had called for an answer to 
Dr. Chennery ’s letter. Shrowl, it appeared, had opened 
the interview by delivering his master’s message, had then 
produced the vicar’s torn letter and the copy of tlie plan, 
and had announced his readiness to part with the latter for 
the consideration of a five-pound note. The messenger had 
explained that he had no power to treat for the document, 
and had advised Mr. Treverton’ s servant to wait on Dr. 
Chennery ’s agent. After some hesitation, Shrowl had de- 
cided to do this, on pretense of going out on an errand- 
had seen the agent — had been questioned about how he be- 
came possessed of the copy— and, finding that there would 
be no chance of disposing of it unless he answered all in- 
quiries, had related the circumstances under which the 
copy had been made. After hearing his statement, the 
agent had engaged to apply immediately for instructions 
to Dr. Chennery : and had written accordingly, mention- 
ing in a postscript that he had seen the transcribed plan, 
and had ascertained that it really exhibited the positions 
of doors, staircases and rooms, with the names attached 
to them. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


215 


Resuming his own letter, Dr. Chennery proceeded to say 
that he must now leave it entirely to Mr. and Mrs. Frank- 
land to decide what course they ought to adopt. He had 
already compromised himself a little in his own estima- 
tion, by assuming a character which really did not belong 
to him, when he made his application to Andrew Trever- 
ton ; and he felt he could personally venture no further in 
the affair, either by expressing an opinion or giving any 
advice, now that it had assumed such a totally new as- 
pect. He felt quite sure that his young friends would ar- 
rive at the wise and the right decision, after they had ma- 
turely considered the matter in all its bearings. In that 
conviction, he had instructed his man of business not to 
stir in the affair until he had heard from Mr. Frankland, 
and to be guided entirely by any directions which that gen- 
tleman might give. 

“Directions!” exclaimed Rosamond, crumpling up the 
letter in a high state of excitement as soon as she had 
read to the end of it. “All the directions we have to 
give may be written in a minute and read in a second ! 
What in the world does the vicar mean by talking about 
mature consideration? Of course,” cried Rosamond, look- 
ing, woman- like, straight on to the purpose she had in view, 
without wasting a thought on the means by which it was 
to be achieved— “ of course we give the man his five-pound 
note, and get the plan by return of post!” 

Mr. Frankland shook his head gravely. ‘ ‘ Quite impos- 
sible, ” he said. “If you think fora moment, my dear, 
you will surely see that it is out of the question to traffic 
with a servant for information that has been surreptitiously 
obtained from his master’s library.” 

“Oh, dear! dear! don’t say that!” pleaded Rosamond, 
looking quite aghast at the view her husband took of the 
matter. ‘ ‘ What harm are we doing, if we give the man 
bis five pounds? He has only made a copy of the Plan; he 
has not stolen anything.” 

“ He has stolen information, according to my idea of it,” 
said Leonard. 

“Well, but if he has, ” persisted Rosamond, “ what harm 
does it do to his master? In my opinion his master de- 
serves to have the information stolen, for not having had 
the common politeness to send it to the vicar. We iniist 
have the Plan— oh, Lenny, don’t shake your head, please! 
— we must have it, you know we must ! What is the use of 
being scrupulous^ with an old wretch (I must call him so, 
though he is my uncle) who won’t conform to the com- 
monest usages of society? You can’t deal with him - and 
l am sure the vicar would say so, if he was here — as you 
would with civilized people, or people in their senses, which 


216 


THE DEAD SECRET 


everybody says he is not. What use is the Plan of the 
north rooms to him? And, besides, if it is of any use, he 
has got the original ; so his information is not stolen, after 
all, because he has got it the whole time— has he not, dear?” 

“Kosamond! Eosamondl” said Leonard, smiling at his 
wife’s transparent sophistries, “you are trying to reason 
like a Jesuit.” 

“I don’t care who I reason like, love, as long as I get 
the Plan. ” 

Mr. Frankland still shook his head. Finding her argu- 
ments of no avail, Eosamond wisely resorted to the im- 
memorial weapon of her sex— Persuasion ; using it at such 
close quarters and to such good purposes that she finally 
won her husband’s reluctant consent to a species of com- 
promise, which granted her leave to give directions for 
purchasing the copied Plan on one condition. 

This condition was that they should send back the Plan 
to Mr. Treverton as soon as it had served their purpose ; 
making a full acknowledgment to him of the manner in 
which it had been obtained, and pleading in justification of 
the proceeding his own want of courtesy in svithholding in- 
formation, of no consequence in itself, which any one else 
in his place would have communicated as a matter of 
course. Eosamond tried hard to obtain the withdru^wal or 
modification of this condition; but her husband’s sensitive 
pride was not to be touched, on that point, with impunity, 
even by her light hand. “ I have done too much violence 
already to my own convictions,” he said, “ and I will now 
do no "more. If we are to degrade ourselves by dealing 
with this servant, let us at least prevent him from claiming 
us as his accomplices. Write in my name, Eosamond, to 
Dr. Chennery’s man of business,* and say that we are will- 
ing to purchase the transcribed Plan on the condition that 
I have stated— which condition he will, of course, place be- 
fore the servant in the plainest possible terms.” 

“And suppose the servant refuses to risk losing his 
place, which he must do if he accepts your condition?” 
said Eosamond, going rather reluctantly to the writing- 
table. 

“Let us not worry ourselves, my dear, by supposing 
anything. Let us wait and hear what happens, and act 
accordingly. When you are ready to write, tell me, and I 
will dictate your letter on this occasion. I wish to make 
the vicar’s man of business understand that we act as we 
do, knowing, in the first place, that Mr. Andrew Treverton 
cannot be dealt with according to the established usages of 
society; and knowing, in the second place, that the in- 
formation which his servant offers to us is contained in an 
extract from a printed book, and is in no way, directly or 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


Si: 

indirectly, connected with Mr. Treverton’s private affairs. 
Now that you have made me consent to this compromise, 
Eosamond, I must justify it as completely as possible to 
others as well as to myself.” 

Seeing that this resolution was firml}^ settled, Eosamond 
had tact enough to abstain from saying anything more. 
The letter was written exactly as Leonard dictated it. 
When it had been placed in the post-bag, and when the 
other letters of the morning had been read and answered, 
Mr. Frankland reminded his wife of the intention she had 
expressed at breakfast -time of visiting the north garden, 
and requested that she would take him there with her. 
He candidly acknowledged that, since he had been made 
acquainted with Dr. Chennery’s letter, he would give five 
times the sum demanded by Shrowl for the copy of the 
Plan if the Myrtle Eoom could be discovered, "without 
assistance from any one, before the letter to the vicar’s 
man of business was put into the post. Nothing would 
give him so much pleasure, he said, as to be able to throw 
it into the fire, and to send a^lain refusal to treat for the 
Plan in its place. 

They went into the north garden, and there Eosamond’s 
own eyes convinced her that she had not the slightest 
chance of discovering any vestige of a myrtle-bed near any 
one of the windows. From the garden they returned to 
the house, and had the door opened that led into the north 
hall. 

They were shown the place on the pavement where the 
keys had been found, and the place at the top of the first 
flight of stairs where Mrs. Jazeph had been discovered 
when the alarm was given. At Mr. Frankland’ s sugges- 
tion, the door of the room which immediately fronted this 
spot was opened. It presented a dreary spectacle of dust 
and dirt and dimness. Some old pictures were piled 
against one of the walls, some tattered chairs were heaped 
together in the middle of the floor, some broken china lay 
on the mantel-piece, and a rotten cabinet, cracked through 
from top to bottom, stood in one corner. These few relics 
of the furnishing and fitting-up of the room were all care- 
fully examined, but nothing of the smallest importance- 
nothing tending in the most remote degree to clear up the 
mystery of the Myrtle Eoom — was discovered. 

“ Shall we have the other doors opened?” inquired Eosa- 
mond when they came out on the landing again. 

I think it will be useless,” replied her husband. ” Our 
only hope of finding out the mystery of the Myrtle Eoom— 
if it is as deeply hidden from us as I believe it to be— is by 
searching for it in that room, and no other. The search, to 
be effectual, must extend, if we find it necessary, to the 


218 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


pulling up of the floor and wainscots — perhaps even to the 
dismantling of the walls. We may do that with one room 
when we know where it is, but Ave cannot, by any process 
short of pulling the whole side of the house down, do it 
with the sixteen rooms, through which our present igno- 
rance condemns us to wander without guide or clew. It is 
hopeless enough to be looking for we know not what ; but 
let us discover, if we can, where the four walls are within 
which that unpromising search must begin and end. 
Surely the floor of the landing must be dusty? Are there 
no foot-marks on it, after Mrs. Jazeph’s visit, that might 
lead us to the right door?” 

This suggestion led to a search for footsteps on the dusty 
floor of the landing, but nothing of the sort could be found. 
Matting had been laid down over the floor at some former 
period, and the surface, torn, ragged, and rotten with age, 
was too uneven in every part to allow the dust to lie 
smoothly on it. Here and there, where there was a hole 
through to the boards of the landing. Mr. Frankland’s 
servant thought he detected marks in the dust which might 
have been produced by the toe or the heel of a shoe; but 
these faint and doubtful indications lay yards and yards 
apart from each other, and to draw any conclusion of the ' 
slightest importance from them was simply and plainly iin- ■ 
possible. After spending more than an hour in examining 
the north side of the house, Eosamond was obliged to con- 
fess that the servants were right when they predicted, on 
first opening the door in the hall, that she would discover 
nothing. 

“The letter must go, Lenny,” she said, when they re- 
turned to the breakfast-room. ^ 

‘ ‘ There is no help for it, ’ ’ answered her husband. ‘ ‘ Send 
away the post-bag, and let us say no more about it.” 

The letter was dispatched by that day’s post. In the re- ■ 
mote position of Porthgenna, and in the unfinished state of 
the railroad at that time, two days would elapse before an ] 
answer from London could be reasonably hoped for. Feel- . I 
ing that it would be better for Eosamond if this period of 
suspense was passed out of the house, Mr. Frankland pro- 
posed to fill up the time by a little excursion along the ^ 
coast to some places famous for their scenery, which would 
be likely to interest his wife, and which she might occupy ^ 
herself pleasantly in describing on the spot for the benefit ^ 
of her husband. This sug^stion was immediately acted j 

on. The young couple left Porthgenna, and only returned | 

on the evening of the second day. ^ 

On the morning of the third day the longed-for letter | 
from the vicar’s man of business lay on the table when | 
Leonard and Eosamond entered the breakfast-room, a 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


m 

Shrowl had decided to accept Mr. Franklaiid’s condition — 
first, because he held that any man must be out of his 
senses who refused a five-pound note when it was offered 
to him ; secondly, because he believed that his master was 
too absolutely dependent on him to turn him away for any 
cause whatever; thirdly, because, if Mr. Treverton did 
part with him, he was not sufficiently attached to his place 
to care at all about losing it. Accordingly the bargain 
had been struck in five minutes— and there was the copy 
of the Plan, inclosed with the letter of explanation to attest 
the fact ! 

Kosamond spread the all-important document out on the 
table with trembling hands, looked it over eagerly for a 
few moments, and laid her finger on the square that repre- 
sented the position of the Myrtle Room. 

“Here it is!” she cried. “Oh, Lenny, how my heart 
beats ! One, two, three, four— the fourth door on the first- 
floor landing is the door of the Myrtle Room!” 

She would have called at once for the keys of the north 
rooms; but her husband insisted on her waiting until she 
had composed herself a little, and until she had taken 
some breakfast. In spite of all he could say, the meal 
was hurried over so rapidly that in ten minutes more his 
wife’s arm was in his, and she was leading him to the stair- 
case. 

The gardener’s prognostication about the weather had 
been verified ; it had turned to heat — heavy, misty, vapor- 
ous, dull heat. One white quivering fog- cloud spread 
thinly over all the heaven, rolled down seaward on the 
horizon line, and dulled the sharp edges of the distant 
moorland view. The sunlight shone pale and trembling; 
the lightest, highest leaves of flowers at open windows 
were still; the domestic animals lay about sleepily in dark 
corners. Chance household noises sounded heavy and loud 
in the languid, airless stillness which the heat seemed to 
hold over the earth. Down in the servants’ hall, the usual 
bustle of morning work was suspended. When Rosamond 
looked in, on her way to the housekeeper’s room to get the 
keys, the women were fanning themselves, and the men 
were sitting with their coats off. They were all talking 
peevishly about the heat, and all agreeing that such a day 
as that, in the month of June, they had never known and 
never heard of before. 

Rosamond took the keys, declined the housekeeper’s offer 
to accompany her, and leading her husband along the 
passages, unlocked the door of the north hall. 

“ How unnaturally cool it is here!” she said, as they en- 
tered the deserted place. 


220 


THE DEAD SECRET 


At the foot of the stairs she stopped, and took a firmer 
hold of her husband’s arm. 

‘‘Is anything the matter?'’ asked Leonard. “Is the 
change to the damp coolness of this place affecting you in 
any way?” 

“No, no,” she answered, hastily. “I am far too excited 
to feel either heat or damp, as I might feel them at other 
times. But, Lenny, supposing your guess about Mrs. 
Jazeph is right ” 

“Yes?” 

“And, supposing we discover the Secret of the Myrtle 
Room, might it not turn out to be something concerning 
my father or my mother which we ought not to know? I 
thought of that when Mrs. Pentreath offered to accom- 
pany us, and it determined me to come here alone with 
you.” 

“It is just as likely that the secret might be something 
we ought to know,” replied Mr. Frankland, after a mo- 
ment’s thought. “In any case, my idea about Mrs. 
Jazeph is, after ’all, only a guess in the dark. However, 
Rosamond, if you feel any hesitation ” 

“No! come what may of it, Lenny, we can’t go back 
now. Give me your hand again. We have traced the 
mystery thus far together, and together we will find it 
out.” 

She ascended the staircase, leading him after her, as she 
spoke. On the landing she looked again at the Plan, and 
satisfied herself that the first impression she had derived 
from it, of the position of the Myrtle Room, was correct. 
She counted the doors on to the fourth, and looked out from 
the bunch the key numbered “IV.,” and put it in the lock. 
Before she turned it she paused, and looked round at her 
husband. 

He was standing by her side, with his patient face turned 
expectantly toward the door. She put her right hand on 
the key, turned it slowly in the lock, drew him closer to 
her with her left hand, and paused again. 

“I don’t know what has come to me,” she whispered, 
faintly. “ I feel as if I was afraid to push open the door.” 

“ Your hand is cold, Rosamond. Wait a little — lock the 
door again— put it off till another day. ’ ’ 

He felt his wife’s fingers close tighter and tighter on his 
hand while he said those words. Then there was an in- 
stant — one memorable, breathless instant, never to be forgot- 
ten afterward —of utter silence. Then he heard the sharp, 
crackling sound of the opening door, and felt himself 
drawn forward suddenly into a changed atmosphere, and 
knew that Rosamond and he were in the Myrtle Room. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


221 


CHAPTER V. 

THE MYRTLE ROOM. 

A BROAD, square window, with small panes and dark 
sashes ; dreary yellow light, glimmering through the dirt 
of half a century crusted on the glass ; purer rays striking 
across the dimness through the fissures of three broken 
panes; dust floating upward, pouring downward, rolling 
smoothly round and round in the still atmosphere ; lofty, 
bare, faded red walls; chairs in confusion, tables placed 
awry ; a tall, black book-case, with an open door half drop- 
ping from its hinges ; a pedestal, with a broken bust lying 
in fragments at its feet ; a ceiling darkened by stains, a 
floor whitened by dust — such was the aspect of the Myrtle 
Room when Rosamond first entered it, leading her hus- 
band by the hand. 

After passing the doorway, she slowly advanced a few 
steps and then stopped, waiting with every sense on the 
watch, with every faculty strung up to the highest pitch of 
expectation — waiting in the ominous stillness, in the for- 
lorn solitude, for the vague Something which the room 
might contain, which might rise visibly before her, which 
might sound audibly behind her, which might touch her 
on a sudden from above, from below, from either side. A 
minute or more she breathlessly waited ; and nothing ap- 
peared, nothing sounded, nothing touched her. The si- 
lence and the solitude had their secret to keep, and kept it. 

She looked round at her husband. His face, so quiet and 
composed at other times, expressed doubt and uneasiness 
now. His disengaged hand was outstretched, and moving 
backward and forward and up and down in the vain at- 
tempt to touch something which might enable him to 
guess at the position in which he was placed. His look 
and action, as he stood in that new and strange sphere, 
the mute appeal which he made so sadly and so un- 
consciously to his wife’s loving help, restored Rosamond’s 
self-possession by recalling her heart to the dearest of all 
its interests, to the holiest of all its cares. Her eyes, fixed 
so distrustfully but the moment before on the dreary 
spectacle of neglect and ruin which spread around them, 
turned fondly to her husband’s face, radiant with the un- 
fathomable brightness of pity and love. She bent quickly 
across him, caught his outstretched arm and pressed it to 
his side. 

“Don’t do that, darling,” she said, gently; “I don’t like 
to see it. It looks as if you had forgotten that I was with 
you— as if you were left alone and helpless. What need 
have you of your sense of touch, when you have got 77ie^ 


222 


THE DEAD SECRET 


Did you hear me open the door, Lenny? Do you know 
that we are in the Myrtle Eoom?” 

‘ ‘ What did you see, Eosamond, when you opened the 
door? What do you see now?” He asked those questions 
rapidly and eagerly, in a whisper. 

“ Nothing but dust and dirt and desolation. The lone- 
liest moor in Cornwall is not so lonely-looking as this 
room ; but there is nothing to alarm us, nothing (except 
one’s own fancy) that suggests an idea of danger of any 
kind.” 

‘ ‘ What made you so long before you spoke to me, Eosa- 
mond?” 

‘ ‘ I was frightened, love, on first entering the room— not 
at what I saw, but at my own fanciful ideas of what I 
might see. I was child enough to be afraid of something 
starting out of the walls, or of something rising through 
the fioor; in short, of I hardly know what. I have got 
over those fears, Leiiny, but a certain distrust of the room 
still clings to me. Do you feel it?” 

“I feel something like it,” he replied, uneasily. ‘‘I 
feel as if the night that is always before my eyes was 
darker to me in this place than in any other. Where are 
we standing now?” 

‘‘Just inside the door.” 

“ Does the fioor look safe to walk on?” He tried it sus- 
piciously with his foot as he put the question. 

“ Quite safe,” replied Eosamond. “It would never sup- 
port the furniture that is on it if it was so rotten as to be 
dangerous. Come across the room with me, and try it.” 
With these words she led him slowly to the window. 

“The air seems as if it was nearer to me,” he said, bend- 
ing his face forward toward the lowest of the broken panes, 
“ What is before us now?” 

She told him, describing minutely the size and appear- 
ance of the window. He turned from it carelessly, as if 
. that part of the room had no interest for him. Eosamond 
still lingered near the window, to try if she could feel a 
breath of the outer atmosphere. There was a momentary 
silence, ‘which was broken by her husband. 

“ What are you doing now?” he asked, anxiously. 

‘ ‘ I am looking out at one di the broken panes of glass 
and trying to get some air,” answered Eosamond. “ The 
shadow of the house is below me, resting on the lonely 
garden ; but there is no coolness breathing up from it. I 
see the tall weeds rising straight and still, and the tangled 
wild flowers interlacing themselves heavily. There is a 
tree near mo, and the leaves look as if they were all struck 
motionless. Away to the left there is a peep of white sea 
and tawny sand quivering in the yellow heat, There ax’o 


THE DEAD SECRET 


228 


no clouds ; there is no blue sky. The mist quenches the 
brightness of the sunlight and lets nothing but the fire of 
it through. There is something threatening in the sky 
and the earth seems to know it.” 

“ But the room! the room!” said Leonard, drawing her 
aside from the window. “Never mind the view; tell me 
what the room is like— exactly what it is like. I shall not 
feel easy about you, Eosamond, if you don’t describe every- 
thing to me just as it is.” 

“My darling! You know you can depend on my de- 
scribing everything. I am only doubting where to begin 
and how to make sure of seeing for you what you are likely 
to think most worth looking at.'*‘ Here is an old ottoman 
against the wall— the wall where the window is. I will 
take off my apron and dust the seat for you ; and then you 
can sit down and listen comfortably while I tell you, be- 
fore we think of anything else, what the room is like, to 
begin with. First of all, I suppose, I must make you un- 
derstand how large it is?” 

“Yes, that is the first thing. Try if you can compare it 
with any room that I was familiar with before I lost my 
sight.” 

Eosamond looked backward and forward, from wall to 
wall — then went to the fireplace and walked slowly down 
the length of the room, counting her steps. Pacing over 
the dusty fioor with a dainty regularity and a childish sat- 
isfaction in looking down at the gay pink rosettes on her 
morning shoes; holding up her crisp, bright muslin dress 
out of the dirt and showing the fanciful embroidery of her 
petticoat, and the glossy stockings that fitted her little 
feet and ankles like a second skin, she moved through the 
dreariness, the desolation, the dingy ruin of the scene 
around her, the most charming living contrast to its dead 
gloom that youth, health and beauty could present. 

Arrived at the bottom of the room, she refiected a little 
and said to her husband : 

“Do you remember the blue drawing-room, Lenny, in 
your father’s house at Long Beckley? I think this room is 
quite as large, if not larger. ” 

“ What are the walls like?” asked Leonard, placing his 
hand on the wall behind him while he spoke. “ They are 
covered with paper, are they not?” 

“Yes; with faded red paper, except on one side, where 
strips have been torn off and thrown on the floor. There is 
wainscoting round the walls. It is cracked in many places, 
and has ragged holes in it, which seem to have been made 
by the rats and mice.” 

“ Are there any pictures on the walls?” 

“No, There is an empty frarae over the fireplace. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


224 

And opposite — I mean just above where lam standing now 
— there is a small mirror, cracked in the center, with 
broken branches for candlesticks projecting on either side 
of it. Above that, again, there is a stag’s head and 
antlers ; some of the face has dropped away, and a perfect 
maze of cobwebs is stretched between the horns. On the 
other walls there are large nails, with more cobwebs hang- 
ing down from them heavy with dirt — but no pictures any- 
where. Now you know everything about the walls. What 
is the next thing? The floor?” 

” I think, Eosamond, my feet have told me already what 
the floor is like?” 

‘ ‘ They may have told" you that it is bare, dear ; but I 
can tell you something more than that. It slopes down 
from every side toward the middle of the room. It is cov- 
ered thick with dust, which is swept about — I suppose by 
the wind blowing through the broken panes — into strange, 
wavy, feathery shapes that quite hide the floor beneath. 
Lenny ! suppose these boards should be made to take up 
anywhere! If we -discover nothing to-day, we will have 
them swept to- morrow. In the meantime I must go on 
telling you about the room, must I not? You know al- 
ready what the size of it is, what the window is like, what 
the walls are like, what the floor is like. Is there any- 
thing else before we come to the furniture? Oh, yes! the 
ceiling— for that completes the shell of the room. I can’t 
see much of it, it is so high. There are great cracks and 
stains from one end to the other, and the plaster has come 
away in patches in some places. The center ornament 
seems to be made of alternate rows of small plaster cab- 
bages and large plaster lozenges. Two bits of chain hang 
down from the middle, which, I suppose, once held a chan- 
delier. The cornice is so dingy that I can hardly tell what 
pattern it represents. It is very broad and heavy, and it 
looks in some places as if it had once been colored, and 
that is all I can say about it. Do you feel as if you thor- 
oughly understood the whole room now, Lenny?” 

“Thoroughly, my love; I have the same clear picture 
of it in my mind which you always give me of everything 
you see. You need waste no more time on me. We 
may now devote ourselves to the purpose for which we 
came here.” 

At those last words, the smile which had been dawning 
on Eosamond’s face when her husband addressed her, van- 
ished from it in a moment. She stole close to his side, and 
bending down over him, with her arm on his shoulder, 
said, in low, whispering tones: 

‘ ‘ When we had the other room opened, opposite the 
landing, we began by examining the furniture. Wo 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


m 


thought— if you remember— that the mystery of the Myrtle 
Eoom might be connected with hidden valuables that had 
been stolen, or hidden papers that ought to have been de- 
stroyed, or hidden stains and traces of some crime which 
even a chair or a table might betray. Shall we examine 
the furniture here?” 

“ Is there much of it, Rosamond?” 

“ More than there was in the other room,” she answered. 

“ More than you can examine in one morning?” 

“No; I think not.” 

‘ ‘ Then begin with the furniture, if you have no better 
plan to propose. I am but a helpless adviser at such a 
crisis as this. I must leave the responsibilities of decision, 
after all, to rest on your shoulders. Yours are the eyes 
that look and the hands that search; and if the secret of 
Mrs. Jazeph’s reason for warning you against entering this 
room is to be found by seeking in the room, you will find 
it ” 

“And you will know it, Lenny, as soon as it is found. 
I won’t hear you talk, love, as if there was any difference 
between us, or any superiority in my position over yours. 
Now, let me see. What shall I begin with? The tall 
book-case opposite the window? or th^dingy old writing- 
table, in the recess behind the fireplace? Those are the 
two largest pieces of furniture that I can see in the room.” 

“Begin with the book-case, my dear, as you seem to 
have noticed that first.” 

Rosamond advanced a few steps toward the book-case— 
then stopped and looked aside suddenly to the lower end of 
the room. 

“Lenny! I forgot one thing when I was telling you 
about the walls,” she said. “There are two doors in the 
room besides the door we came in at. They are both in 
the wall to the right, as I stand now with my back to the 
window. Each is at the same distance from the corner, 
and each is of the same size and appearance. Don’t you 
think we ought to open them and see where they lead to?” 

“ Certainly. But are the keys in the locks?” 

Rosamond approached more closely to the doors and an- 
swered in the affirmative. 

“Open them, then,” said Leonard. “Stop! not by your- 
self. Take me with you. I don’t like the idea of sitting 
here and leaving you to open those doors by yourself.” 

Rosamond retraced her steps to the place where he was 
sitting, and then led him with her to the door that was 
furthest from the window. “Suppose there should be 
some dreadful sight behind it!” she said, trembling a lit- 
tle as she stretched out her hand toward the key. 


230 


THE DEAD SECDET, 

“Try to suppose (what is much more probable) that it 
only leads into another room,” suggested Leonard, 

Rosamond threw the door wide open suddenly. Her 
husband was right. It merely led into the next room. 

They passed on to the second door. “Can this one serve 
the same purpose as the other?” said Rosamond, slowly 
and distrustfully turning the key. 

She opened it as she had opened the first door, put her 
head inside it for an instant, drew back, shuddering, and 
closed it again violently, with a faint exclamation of 
disgust. 

“Don’t be alarmed, Lenny,” she said, leading him away 
abruptly. “The door only opens on a large, empty cup- 
board. But there are quantities of horrible, crawling 
brown creatures about the walls inside. I have shut them 
in again in their darkness and their secrecy, and now I am 
going to take you back to your seat before we find out next 
what the book-case contains.” 

The door of the upper part of the book-case, hanging 
open and half dropping from its hinges, showed the empti- 
ness of the shelves on one side at a glance. The corre- 
sponding door, when Rosamond pulled it open, disclosed 
.exactly the same spectacle of barrenness on the other side. 
Over every shelf tfcre spread the same dreary accumula- 
tion of dust and dirt, without a vestige of a book, without 
even a stray scrap of paper lying anywhere in a corner to 
attract the eye from top to bottom. 

'' The lower portion of the book -case w^as divided into three 
cupboards. In the door of one of the three the rusty key 
remained in the lock. Rosamond turned it with some 
difficulty and looked into the cupboard. At the back of it 
were scattered a pack of playing-cards, brown with dirt. 
A morsel of torn, tangled muslin lay among them, which, 
when Rosamond spread it out, proved to be the ‘remains of 
a clergyman’s band. In one corner she found a broken 
corkscrew and the winch of a fishing-rod ; in another some 
stumps of tobacco-pipes, a few old medicine bottles and a 
dog’s-eared peddler’s song-book. These were all the ob- 
jects that the cupboard contained. After Rosamond had 
scrupulously described each one of them to her husband, 
just as she found it, she went on to the second cupboard. 
On trying the door, it turned out not to be locked. On 
looking inside she discovered nothing but some pieces of 
blackened cotton -wool and the remains of a jeweler’s pack- 
ing-case. 

The third door was locked, but the rusty key from the 
first cupboard opened it. Inside there w^as but one object 
—a small wooden box, banded round with a piece of tape, 
the t\vo edges of which were fastened together by a seal. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 




Rosamond’s flagging interest rallied instantly at this dis- 
covery. She described the box to her husband and asked 
if he thought she was justified in breaking the seal. 

“ Can you see anything written on the cover?” he in- 
quired. 

Rosamond carried the box to the window, blew the dust 
off the top of it and read, on a parchment label nailed to 
the cover, “ Papers. John Arthur Treverton. 1760.” 

'‘I think you may take the responsibility of breaking 
the seal,” said Leonard. “ If those papers had been of any 
family importance they could scarcely have been left for- 
gotten in an old book-case by your father and his exec- 
utors.” 

Rosamond broke the seal, then looked up doubtfully at 
her husband before she opened the box. ‘ ‘ It seems a mere 
waste of time to look into this,” she said. ” How can a 
box that has not been opened since seventeen hundred and 
sixty help us to discover the mystery of Mrs. Jazeph and 
the Myrtle Room?” 

“But do we know that it has not been opened since 
then?” said Leonard. “ Might not the tape and seal have 
been put round it by anybody at some more recent period 
of time. You can judge best, because you can see if there 
is any inscription on the tape, or any signs to form an 
opinion by upon the seal.” 

“ The seal is a blank, Lenny, except that it has a flower 
like a forget-me-not in the middle. I can see no mark of 
a pen on either side of the tape. Anybody in the world 
might have opened the box before me,” she continued, 
forcing up the lid easily with her hands, ‘ ‘ for the lock is 
no protection to it. The wood of the cover is so rotten 
that I have pulled the staple out and left it sticking by it- 
self in the lock below. ” 

On examination the box proved to be full of papers. At 
the top of the uppermost packet were written these words : 

‘ ‘ Election expenses. I won by four votes. Price fifty 
pounds each. J. A. Treverton.” The next layer of papers 
had no inscription. Rosamond opened them and read on 
the first leaf : “ Birthday Ode. Respectfully addressed to 
the Maecenas of modern times in his poetic retirement at 
Porthgenna.” Below this production appeared a collec- 
tion of old bills, old notes of invitation, old doctors’ pre- 
scriptions and old leaves of betting-books, tied together 
with a piece of whip-cord. Last of all there la}^ on the bot- 
tom of the box one thin leaf of paper, the visible side of 
which presented a perfect blank. Rosamond took it up, 
turned it to look at the other side, and saw some faint ink- 
lines crossing each other in various directions, and having 
letters of the alphabet attached to them in certain places. 


m 


THE DEAD SECDET. 


She had made her husband acquainted with the contents of 
all the other papers, as a matter of course; and when she 
had described this last paper to him, he explained to her 
that the lines and letters represented a mathematical prob- 
lem. 

“ The book case tells us nothing,” said Eosamond, slowly 
putting the papers back in the box. ” Shall we try the 
writing-table by the fireplace next?” 

“ What does it look like, Eosamond?” 

“It has two rows of drawers down each side; and the 
whole top is made in an odd, old-fashioned way to slope 
upward like a very large writing-desk.” 

“ Does the top open?” 

Eosamond went to the table, examined it narrowly and 
then tried to raise the top. “ It is made to open, for I see 
the key- hole,” she said. “ But it is locked. And all the 
drawers,” she continued, trying them, one after another, 
“are locked, too.” 

“ Is there no key in any of them?” asked Leonard. 

“Not a sign of one. But the top feels so loose that I 
really think it might be forced open — as I forced the little 
box open just now — by a pair of stronger hands than I can 
boast of. Let me take you to the table, dear; it may give 
way to your strength, though it will not to mine.” 

She placed her husband’s hands carefully under the ledge 
formed by the overhanging top of the table. He exerted 
his whole strength to force it up ; but in this case the wood 
was sound, the lock held and all his efforts were in vain. 

“ Must we send for a locksmith?” asked Eosamond, with 
a look of disappointment. 

“If the table is of any value, we must,” returned her 
husband. “If not, a screw-driver and a hammer will open 
both the top and the drawers in anybody's hands.” 

“ In that case, Lenny, I wish we had brought them with 
us when we came into the room, for .the only value of the 
table lies in the secrets that it may be hiding from us. I 
shall not feel satisfied until you and I know what there is 
inside of it.” 

While saying these words she took her husband’s hand 
to lead him back to his seat. As they passed before the 
fireplace he stepped upon the bare stone hearth; and, 
feeling some new substance under his feet, instinctively 
stretched out the hand that was free. It touched a marble 
tablet, with figures on it in bass-relief, which had been let 
into the middle of the chimney-piece. He stopped imme- 
diately, and asked what the object was that his fingers had 
accidentally touched. 

“A piece of sculpture,” said Eosamond. “I did not 
notice it before. It is not very large, and not particular!}^ 


THE DEAD SECRET, 229 

attractive, according to my taste. So far as I can tell, it 
seems to be intended to represent ’ ’ 

Leonard stopped her before she could say any more. 
‘‘Let me try, for once, if I can make a discovery for my- 
self,” he said, a little impatiently. ‘‘Let me try if my 
fingers won’t tell me what this sculpture is meant to rep- 
resent.” 

He passed his hands carefully over the bass-relief (Eosa- 
mond watching their slightest movement with silent inter- 
est, the while), considered a little, and said: 

‘ ‘ Is there not a figure of a man sitting down in the right- 
hand corner? And are there not rocks and trees, very 
stiffly done, high up, at the left-hand side?” 

Rosamond looked at him tenderly and smiled. “My 
poor dear!” she said. “ Your man sitting down is in re- 
ality a miniature copy of the famous ancient statue of 
Niobe and her child; your rocks are marble imitations of 
clouds, and your stiffly done trees are arrows darting out 
from some invisible Jupiter or Apollo, or other heathen 
god. Ah, Lenny, Lenny ! you can’t trust your touch, love, 
as you can trust me!” 

A momentary shade of vexation passed across his face ; 
but it vanished the instant she took his hand again to lead 
him back to his seat. He drew her to him gently and 
kissed her cheek. “You are right, Rosamond,” he said. 
“ The one faithful friend to me in my blindness, who never 
fails, is my wife.”' 

Seeing him look a little saddened, and feeling, with the 
quick intuition of a woman’s affection, that he was think- 
ing of the days when he had enjoyed the blessing of sight, 
Rosamond returned abruptly as soon as she saw him seated 
once more on the ottoman, to the subject of the Myrtle 
Room. 

“ Where shall I look next, dear?” she said. “ The book^ 
case we have examined^ The writing-table we must wait 
to examine. What else is there that has a cupboard or a 
drawer in it?” She looked round her in perplexity; then 
walked away toward the part of the room to which her 
attention had been last drawn— the part where the fire- 
place was situated. 

“I thought I noticed something here, Lenny, when I 
passed just now with you,” she said, approaching the sec- 
ond recess behind the mantel-piece, corresponding with the 
recess in which the writing-table stood. 

She looked into the place closely and detected in a corner, 
darkened by the shadow of the heavy, projecting mantel- 
piece, a narrow, rickety little table made of the commonest 
mahogany— the frailest, poorest, least conspicuous piece of 
furniture in the whole room. She pushed it out contempt- 


630 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


uously into the light with her foot. It ran on clumsy, 
old-fashioned casters, and creaked wearily as it moved. 

'•‘Lenny, I have found another table,” said Eosamond. 
“A miserable, forlorn-looking little thing, lost in a corner. 
I have just pushed it into the light, and I have discovered 
one drawer in it.” She paused and tried to open the 
drawer; but it resisted her. “Another lock!” she ex- 
claimed, impatiently. ‘ ‘ Even this wretched thing is closed 
against us!” 

She pushed the table sharply away with her hand. It 
swayed on its frail legs, tottered and fell over on the floor 
— fell as heavily as a table of twice its size — fell with a 
shock that rang through the room and repeated itself again 
and again in the echoes of the lonesome north hall. 

Eosamond ran to her husband, seeing him start from his 
seat in alarm, and told him what had happened. “You 
call it a little table,” he replied, in astonishment. “ It fell 
like one of the largest pieces of furniture in the room !” 

“ Surely there must have been something heavy in the 
drawer, ’ ’ said Eosamond, approaching the table with her 
spirits still fluttered by the shock of its unnaturally heavy 
fall. After waiting for a few moments to give the dust 
which it had raised, and which still hung over it in thick, 
lazy clouds, time to disperse, she stooped down and exam- 
ined it. It was cracked across the top from end to end, 
and the lock had been broken away from its fastenings by 
the fall. 

She set the table up again carefully, drew out the drawer, 
and, after a glance at its contents, turned to her husband. 
“I knew it,” she said; “ I knew there must be something 
heavy in the drawer. It is full of pieces of copper ore, 
like those specimens of my father’s, Lenny, from Porth- 
genna mine. Wait! I think I feel something else, as far 
away at the back here as my hand can reach. ’ ’ 

She extricated from the lumps of ore at the back of the 
drawer a small circular picture-frame of black wood, about 
the size of an ordinary hand-glass. It came out with the 
front part downward, and with the area which its circle 
inclosed filled up by a thin piece of wood, of the sort which 
is used at the backs of small frames to keep drawings and 
engravings steady in them. This piece of wood (only 
secured to the back of the frame by one nail) had been 
forced out of its place, probably by the overthrow of the 
table; and when Eosamond took the frame out of the 
drawer, she observed between it and the dislodged piece of 
wood the end of a morsel of paper apparently folded many 
times over, so as to occupy the smallest possible space. 
She drew out the piece of paper, laid it aside on the table 
without unfolding it, replaced the piece of wood in its 


THE DEAD SECRET. 

proper position, and then turned the frame round, to see if 
there was a picture in front. 

There was a picture — a picture painted in oils, darkened, 
but not much faded by age. It represented the head of a 
woman, and the figure as far as the bosom. 

The instant Eosamond’s eyes fell on it she shuddered, 
and hurriedly advanced toward her husband with the pict- 
ure in her hand. 

“ Well, what have you found now?” he inquired, hearing 
her approach. 

“A picture,” she answered, faintly, stopping to look at 
it again. 

Leonard’s sensitive ear detected a change in her voice. 
“Is there anything that alarms you in the picture?” he 
asked, half in jest, half in earnest. 

“There is something that startles me — something that 
seems to have turned me cold for the moment, hot as the 
day is,” said Eosamond. “Do you remember the descrip- 
tion the servant-girl gave us, on the night we arrived here, 
of the ghost of the nnrth rooms?” 

“ Yes, I remember it perfectly.” 

“Lenny! that description and this picture are exactly 
alike 1 Here is the curling, light brown hair. Here is the 
dimple on each cheek. Here are the bright, regular teeth. 
Here is that leering, wicked, fatal beauty which the girl 
tried to describe, and did describe, when she said it was 
awful!” 

Leonard smiled. “ That vivid fancy of yours, my dear, 
takes strange flights sometimes,” he said, quietly. 

“ Fancy?” repeated Eosamond to herself. “ How can it 
be fancy when I see the face ! how can it be fancy when 

I feel She stopped, shuddered again, and, returning 

hastily to the table, placed the picture on it, face down- 
ward. As she did so, the morsel of folded paper which 
she had removed from the back of the frame caught her 
eye. 

“There maybe some account of the picture in this,” 
she said, and stretched out her hand to it. 

It was getting on toward noon. The heat weighed heav- 
ier on the air, and the stillness of all things was more 
intense than ever, as she took up the paper from the 
table. 

Fold by fold she opened it, and saw that there were writ- 
ten characters inside, traced in ink, that had faded to a 
light, yellow hue.^ She smoothed it out carefully on the 
table — then took it up again and looked at the first line of 
the writing. 

The first line contained only three words — words which 
told her that the paper with the writing on it was not ^ 


232 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


description of the picture, but a letter — words which made 
her start and change color the moment her eye fell upon 
them. Without attempting to read any further, she hastily 
turned over the leaf to find out the place where the writing 
ended. 

It ended at the bottom of the third page ; but there was 
a break in the lines, near the foot of the second page, and 
in that break there were two names signed. She looked at 
the uppermost of the two — started again — and turned back 
instantly to the first page. 

Line by line, and word by word, she read through the 
writing; her natural complexion fading out gradually the 
while, and a dull, even whiteness overspreading all her 
face in its stead. When she had come to the end of the 
third page, the hand in which she held the letter dropped 
to her side, and she turned her head slowly toward Leon- 
ard. In that position she stood — no tears moistening her 
eyes, no change passing over her features, no word escaping 
her lips, no movement varying the position of her limbs — 
in that position she stood, with the fatal letter crumpled 
up in her cold fingers, looking steadfastly, speechlessly, 
breathlessly at her blind husband. 

He was still sitting as she had seen him a few minutes 
before, with his legs crossed, his hands clasped together in 
front of them, and his head turned expectantly in the di- 
rection in which he had last heard the sound of his wife’s 
voice. But in a few moments the intense stillness in the 
room forced itself upon his attention. He changed his 
position — listened for a little, turning his head uneasily 
from side to side, and then called to his wife. 

“ Eosamond!” 

At the sound of his voice her lips moved, and her fingers 
closed faster on the paper that they held ; but she neither 
stepped forward nor spoke. 

“Eosamond!” 

Her lips moved again — faint traces of expression began 
to pass shadow-like over the blank whiteness of her face — 
she advanced one step, hesitated, looked at the letter, and 
stopped. 

Hearing no answer, he rose surprised and uneasy. Mov- 
ing his poor, helpless, wandering hands to and fro before 
him in the air, he walked forward a few paces, straight 
out from the wall against which he had been sitting. A 
chair, which his hands were not held low enough to touch, 
stood in his way ; and, as he still advanced, he struck his 
knee sharply against it. 

A cry burst from Eosamond ’s lips, as if the pain of the 
blow had passed, at the instant of its infliction, from her 


THE DEAD SECRET, 233 

husband to herself. She was by his side in a moment. 
“ You are not hurt, Lenny,” she said, faintly. 

“No, no.” He tried to press his hand on the place 
where he had struck himself, but she knelt down quickly, 
and put her own hand there instead, nestling her head 
against him, while she was on her knees, in a strangely 
hesitating, timid way. He lightly laid the hand which 
she had intercepted on her shoulder. The moment it 
touched her, her eyes began to soften; the tears rose in 
them, and fell slowly one by one down her cheeks. 

“I thought you had left me,” he said. “There was 
such a silence that I fancied you had gone out of the 
room.” 

“ Will you come out of it with me now?” Her strength 
seemed to fail her when she asked the question ; her head 
drooped on her breast, and she let the letter fall on the 
floor at her side. 

“ Are you tired already, Eosamond? Your voice sounds 
as if you were.” 

“ I want to leave the room,” she said, still in the same 
low, faint, constrained tone. “ Is your knee easier, dear? 
Can you walk now?” 

“Certainly. There is nothing in tho world the matter 
with my knee. If you are tired, Eosamond — as I know 
you are, though you may not confess it — the sooner we 
leave the room the better.” 

She appeared not to hear the last word^ Jie said. Her 
fingers were working feverishly about her neck and bosom ; 
two bright red spots were beginning to burn in her pale 
cheeks ; her eyes were fixed vacantly on the letter at her 
side ; her hands waved about it before she picked it up. 
For a few seconds she waited on her knees, looking at it 
intently, with her head turned away from her husband- 
then rose and walked to the fireplace. Among the dust, 
ashes, and other rubbish at the back of the grate, were 
scattered some old torn pieces of paper. They caught her 
eye, and held it fixed on them. She looked and looked, 
slowly bending down nearer and nearer to the grate. For 
one moment she held the letter out over the rubbish in 
both hands — the next she drew back shuddering violently, 
and turned round so as to face her husband again. At the 
sight of him a faint inarticulate exclamation, half sigh, 
half sob, burst from her. “Oh, no, no!” she whispered to 
herself, clasping her hands together fervently, and looking 
at him with fond, mournful eyes. “Never, never, Lenny 
—come of it what may 1” 

“ Were you speaking to me, Eosamond?” 

‘‘Yes, love. I was saying ” She paused, apd^ with 


234 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


trembling fingers, folded up the paper again, exactly in 
the form in which she had found it. 

“Where are you!” he asked. “Your voice sounds 
away from me at the other end of the room again. Where 
are you?” 

She ran to him, flushed, and trembling, and tearful, took 
him by the arm, and, without an instant of hesitation, 
without the faintest sign of irresolution in her face, placed 
the folded paper boldly in his hand. ‘ ‘ Keep that, Lenny, ” 
she said, turning deadly pale, but still not losing her firm- 
ness. “ Keep that, and ask me to read it to you as soon 
as we are out of the Myrtle Room.” 

“ What is it?’ ’ he asked. 

“The last thing I have found, love,” she replied, look- 
ing at him earnestly, with a deep sigh of relief. 

“ Is it of any importance?” 

Instead of answering, she suddenly caught him to her 
bosom, clung to him with all the fervor of her impulsive 
nature, and breathlessly and passionately covered his face 
with kisses. 

“Gently! gently!” said Leonard, laughing. “You take 
away my breath.” 

She drew back, and stood looking at him in silence, with 
a hand laid on each of his shoulders. Oh, my angel!” 
she murmured, tenderly. ‘ ‘ I would give all I have in the 
world, if I could only know how much you love me!” 

“Surely,” he returned, still laughing — “surely, Rosa- 
mond, you ouglit to know by this time.” 

“I shall know soon.” She spoke those words in tones 
so quiet and low that they were barely audible. Inter- 
preting the change in her voice as a fresh indication of 
fatigue, Leonard invited her to lead him away by holding 
out his hand. She took it in silence, and guided him slowly 
to the door. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE TELLIKG OF THE SECRET. 

On their w^ay back to the inhabited side of the house, 
Rosamond made no further reference to the subject of the 
folded paper which she had placed in her husband’s hands. 
aVll her attention, while they were returning to the west 
front, seemed to be absorbed in the one act of jealously 
watching every inch of ground that Leonard walked over, 
to make sure that it was safe and smooth before she 
suffered him to set his foot on it. Careful and considerate 
as she had always been, from the first day of their married 
life, whenever she led him from one place to another, she 
was now unduly, almost absurdly anxious to preserve him 


‘ THE DEAD SECRET, 


235 


from the remotest possibility of an accident. Finding that 
he was the nearest to the outside of the open landing when 
they left the Myrtle Room, she insisted on changing places, 
so that he might be nearest to the wall. While they were 
descending the stairs, she stopped him in the middle, to 
inquire if he felt any pain in the knee which he had struck 
against the chair. At the last step she brought him to a 
standstill again, while she moved away the torn and tangled 
remains of an old mat, for fear one of his feet should catch 
in it. 

Walking across the norths hall, she entreated that he 
would take her arm and lean heavily upon her, because 
she felt sure that his knee was not quite free from stiffness 
yet. Even at the short flight of stairs which connected the 
entrance to the hall with the passages leading to the west 
side of the house, she twice stopped him on the way down, 
to place his foot on the sound parts of the steps, which she 
represented as dangerously worn away in more places than 
one. He laughed good-humoredly at her excessive anxiety 
to save him from all danger of stumbling, and asked if 
there was any likelihood, with their numerous stoppages, 
of getting back to the west side of the house in time for 
lunch. She was not ready, as usual, with her retort ; his 
laugh found no pleasant echo in hers ; she only answered 
that it was impossible to be too anxious about him ; and 
then went on in silence till they reached the door of the 
housekeeper’s room. 

Leaving him for a moment outside, she went in to give 
the keys back again to Mrs. Pentreath. 

“Dear me, ma’am!” exclaimed the housekeeper, “you 
look quite overcome by the heat of the day and the close 
air of those old rooms. Can I get you a glass of water, or 
may I give you my bottle of salts?” 

Rosamond declined both offers. 

“May I be allowed to ask, ma’am, if anything has been 
found this time in the north rooms?” inquired Mrs. Pen- 
treath, hanging up the bunch of keys. 

“Only some old papers,” replied Rosamond, turning 
away. 

“ I beg pardon again, ma’am,” pursued the housekeeper; 
“ but, in case any of the gentry of the neighborhood should 
call to-day?” 

“We are engaged. No matter who it may be, we are 
both engaged.” Answering briefly in these terms, Rosa- 
mond left Mrs. Pentreath, and rejoined her husband. 

With the same excess of attention and care which she had 
shown on the way to the housekeeper’s room, she now led 
him up the west staircase. The library door happening to 
stand open, they passed through it on their way to the 


236 


THE -DEAD SECRET. 


drawing-room, which was the larger and cooler apartment 
o£ the two. Having gui<led Leonard to a seat, Eosamond 
returned to the library and took from the table a tray con- 
taining a bottle of water and a tumbler, which she had 
noticed when she passed through. 

“I may feel faint as well as frightened,” she said, 
quickly, to herself, turning round with the tray in her 
hand to return to the drawing-room. 

After she had put the water down on a table in a corner, 
she noiselessly locked the door leading into the library, 
then the door leading into the passage. Leonard, hearing 
her moving about, advised her to keep quiet on the sofa. 
She patted him gently on the cheek, and was about to 
make some suitable answer, when she accidentally beheld 
her face reflected in the looking-glass under which he was 
sitting. The sight of her own white cheeks and startled 
eyes suspended the words on her lips. She hastened away 
to the window, to catch any breath of air that might be 
wafted toward her from the sea. 

The heaLmist still hid the horizon. Nearer, the oily, 
colorless surface of the water was just visible, heaving 
slowly, from time to time, in one vast monotonous wave 
that rolled itself out smoothly and endlessly till it was lost 
in the white obscurity of the mist. Close on the shore the 
noisy surf was hushed. No sound came from the beach 
except at long, wearily long intervals, when a quick 
thump, and a still splash, just audible and no more, an- 
nounced the fall of one tiny, mimic wave upon the parch- 
ing sand. On the terrace in front of the house, the change- 
less hum of summer insects was all that told of life and 
movement. Not a human flgure was to be seen anywhere 
on the shore ; no sign of a sail loomed shadowy through 
the heat at sea; no breath of air waved the light tendrils 
of the creepers that twined up the house- wall, or refreshed 
the drooping flowers ranged in the windows. Eosamond 
turned away from the outer prospect, after a moment’s 
weary contemplation of it. As she looked into the room 
again, her husband spoke to her. 

“What precious thing lies hidden in this paper?” he 
asked, producing the letter, and smiling as he opened it. 
“Surely there must be something besides writing — some 
inestimable powder, or some bank-note of fabulous value — 
wrapped up in all these folds?” 

Eosamond’s heart sunk within her as he opened the let- 
ter and passed his Anger over the writing inside, with a 
mock expression of anxiety, and a light jest about sharing 
all treasures discovered at Porthgenna with his wife. 

“ I will read it to you directly, Lenny,” she said, drop- 
ping into the nearest seat, and languidly pushing her hair 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


m 

back from her temples. “ But put it away for a few min- 
utes now, and let us talk of anything else you like that 
does not remind us of the Myrtle Eoom. I am very capri- 
cious, am I not, to be so suddenly weary of the very sub- 
ject that I have been fondest of talking about for so many 
weeks past? Tell, me, love,” she added, rising abruptly 
and going to the back of his chair; “do I get worse with 
my whims and fancies and faults? — or am I improved, 
since the time when we were first married?” 

He tossed the letter aside carelessly on a table which was 
always placed by the arm of his chair, and shook his fore- 
finger at her with a frown of comic reproof. “Oh, fy, 
Rosamond! are you trying to entrap me into paying you 
compliments?” 

The light tone that he persisted in adopting seemed ab- 
solutely to terrify her. She shrunk away from his chair, 
and sat down again at a little distance from him. 

“I remember I used to offend you,” she continued, 
quickly and confusedly. “No, no, not to offend — only to 
vex you a little— by talking too familiarly to the servants. 
You might almost have fancied, at first, if you had not 
known me so well, that it was a habit with me because I 
had once been a servant myself. Suppose I had been a 
servant— the servant who had helped to nurse you in your 
illnesses, the servant who led you about in your blindness 
more carefully than any one else— would you have thought 
much, then, of the difference between us? would you ” 

She stopped. The smile had vanished from Leonard’s 
face, and he had turned a little away from her. “What 
is the use, Rosamond, of supposing events that never could 
have happened?” he asked rather impatiently. 

She went to the side-table, poured out some of the water 
she had brought from the library, and drank it eagerly ; 
then walked to the window and plucked a few of the fiow- 
ers that were placed there. She threw some of them away 
again the next moment; but kept the rest in her hand, 
thoughtfully arranging them so as to contrast their colors 
with the best effect. When this was done, she put them 
into her bosom, looked down absently at them, took them 
out again, and, returning to her husband, placed the little 
nosegay in the button-hole of his coat. 

‘ ‘ Something to make you look gay and bright, love — as 
I always wish to see you,” she said, seating herself in her 
favorite attitude at his feet, and looking up at him sadly, 
with her arms resting on his kees. 

“What are you thinking about, Rosamond?” he asked, 
after an interval of silence. 

“ I was wondering, Lenny, whether any woman in the 
■^orld could be as fond of you as I am. I feel almost 


m 


DEAD SECRET. 


afraid that there are others who would ask nothing better 
than to live and die for you, as well as me. There is some- 
thing in your face, in your voice, in all your ways— some- 
thing besides the interest of your sad, sad affliction — that 
would draw any woman’s heart to you, I think. If I were 
to die ” 

“If you were to die!” He started as he repeated the 
words after her, and, leaning forward, anxiously laid his 
hand upon her forehead. “ You are thinking and talking 
very strangely this morning, Eosamond! Are you not 
well?” 

She rose on her knees and looked closer at him, her face 
brightening a little, and a faint smile just playing round 
her lips. ‘ ‘ I wonder if you will always be as anxious 
about me, and as fond of me, as you are now?” she wliis- 
pered, kissing his hand as she removed it from her fore- 
head. He leaned back again in the chair, and told her 
jestingly not to look too far into the future. The words, 
lightly as they were spoken, struck deep into her heart. 
“ There are times, Lenny,” she said, “when all one’s hap- 
piness in the present depends upon one’s certainty of the 
future.” She looked at the letter, which her husband had 
left open on a table near him, as she spoke ; and, after a 
momentary struggle with herself, took it in her hand to 
read it. At the first word her voice failed her ; the deadly 
paleness overspread her face again ; she threw |the letter 
back on the table, and walked away to the other end of the 
room. 

“The future?’*’ asked Leonard. “What future, Eosa- 
mond, can you possibly mean?” 

“ Suppose I meant our future at Porthgenna?” she said, 
moistening her dry lips with a few drops of water. “ Shall 
we stay here as long as we thought we should, and be as 
happy as we have been everywhere else? You told me on 
the journey that I should find it dull, and that I should be 
driven to try all sorts of extraordinary occupations to 
amuse myself. You said you expected that I should begin 
with gardening and end by writing a novel. A novel!” 
She approached her husband again, and watched his face 
eagerly while she went on. “Why not? More women 
write novels now than men. What is to prevent me from 
trying? The first great requisite, I suppose, is to have an 
idea of a story; and that I have got.” She advanced a 
few steps further, reached the table on which the letter 
lay, and placed her hand on it, keeping her eyes still fixed 
intently on Leonard’s face. 

“ And what is your idea, Eosamond?” he asked. 

“ This,” she replied. “ I mean to make the main inter- 
est of the story center in two young married people. They 


THE DEAD SECDET. 


m 


fehall be very fond of each other — as fond as we are, Lenny 
— and they shall be in our rank of life. After they have 
been happily married some time, and when they have got 
one child to make them love each other more dearly than 
ever, a terrible discovery shall fall upon them like a thun 
der-bolt. The husband shall have chosen for his wife a 
young lady bearing as ancient a family name as ’’ 

“ As your name?” suggested Leonard. 

“ As the name of the Treverton family,” she continued, 
after a pause, during which her hand had been restlessly 
moving the letter to and fro on the table. “ The husband 
shall be well-born— as well-born as you, Lenny — and the 
terrible discovery shall be, that his wife has no right to 
the ancient name that she bore when he married her.” 

“I can’t say, my love, that I approve of your idea. 
Your story will decoy the reader into feeling an interest in 
a woman who turns out to be an impostor.” 

“No!” cried Rosamond, warmly. “A true woman — a 
woman who never stooped to a deception — a woman full of 
faults and failings, but a teller of the truth at all hazards 
and all sacrifices. Hear me out, Lenny, before you 
judge.” . Hot tears rushed into her eyes; but she dashed 
them away passionately, and went on. “ The wife shall 
grow up to womanhood, and shall marry, in total igno- 
rance — mind that I — in total ignorance of her real history. 
The sudden disclosure of the truth shall overwhelm her — 
she shall find herself struck by a calamity which she had 
no hand in bringing about. She shall be staggered in her 
very reason by the discovery ; it shall burst upon her when 
she has no one but herself to depend upon ; she shall have 
the power of keeping it a secret from her husband with 
perfect impunity ; she shall be tried, she shall be shaken 
in her mortal frailness, by one moment of fearful tempta- 
tion ; she shall conquer it, and, of her own free will, she 
shall tell her husband all that she knows herself. Now, 
Lenny, what do you call that woman? an impostor?” 

“No; a victim.” 

“ Who goes of her own accord to the sacrifice? and who 
is to be sacrificed?” 

“ I never said that.” 

‘ ‘ What would you do with her, Lenny, if you were 
writing the story? I mean, how would you make her hus- 
band behave to her! It is a question in which a man’s 
nature is concerned, and a woman is not competent to 
decide it. I am perplexed about how to end the story. 
How would you end it, love?” As she ceased, her voice 
sunk sadly to its gentlest, pleading tones. She came close 
to him, and twined her fingers in his hair fondly. “ How 


240 


THE DEAD SECRET 


would you end it, love?” she repeated, stooping down till 
her trembling lips just touched his forehead. 

He moved uneasily in his chair, and replied — “I am not 
a writer of novels, Rosamond.” 

“Bub how would you act, Lenny, if you were that hus- 
band?” 

“ It is hard for me to say,” he answered. “ I have not 
your vivid imagination, my dear. I have no power of 
putting myself, at a moment’s notice, into a position that 
is not my own, and of knowing how I should act in it.” 

‘ ‘ But suppose your wife were close to you — as close as I 
am now? Suppose she had just told you the dreadful 
secret, and were standing before you — as I am standing 
now — with the happiness of her whole life to come depend- 
ing on one kind word from your lips? Oh, Lenny, you 
would not let her drop broken-hearted at your feet? You 
would know, let her birth be what it might, that she was 
still the same faithful creature who had cherished and 
served and trusted and worshiped you since her marriage- 
day, and who asked nothing in return but to lay her head 
on your bosom, and to hear you say that you loved her? 
You would know that she had nerved herself to tell the 
fatal secret, because, in her loyalty and love to her hus- 
band, she would rather die forsaken and despised, than 
live, deceiving him? You would know all this, and you 
would open your arms to the mother of your child, to the 
wife of your first love, though she were the lowliest of all 
lowly born women in the estimation of the world? Oh, 
you would, Lenny, I know you would!” 

‘ ‘ Rosamond, how your hands tremble I how your voice 
alters! You are agitating yourself about this supposed 
story of yours, as if you were talking of real events.” 

“ You would take her to your heart, Lenny? You would 
open your arms to her without an instant of unworthy 
doubt?” 

‘ ‘ Hush ! hush ! I hope I should. ” 

“Hope? only hope? Oh, think again, love, think again; 
and say you hnow you should.” 

“ Must I, Rosamond? Then I do say it.” 

She drew back as the words passed his lips, and took 
the letter from the table. 

You have not yet asked me, Lenny, to read the letter 
that I found in the Myrtle Room. I offer to read it now 
of my own accord.” 

She trembled a little as she spoke those few decisive 
words, but her utterance of them was clear aj^ steady, as 
if her consciousness of being now irrevocably pledged to 
make the disclosure had strengthened her at last to dare 
all hazards and end all suspense. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


241 


Her husband turned toward the place from which the 
sound of her voice had reached him, with a mixed expres- 
sion of perplexity and surprise in his face. “You pass so 
suddenly from one subject to another,” he said, “that I 
hardly know how to follow you. What in the world, Ros- 
amond, takes you, at one jump, from a romantic argu- 
ment about a situation in a novel, to the plain, practical 
business of reading an old letter?” 

‘ ‘ Perhaps there is a closer connection between the two 
than you suspect,” she answered. 

“ A closer connection? What connection? I don’t un- 
derstand.” 

“ The letter will explain.” 

“ Why the letter? Why should you not explain?” 

She stole one anxious look at his face, and saw that a 
sense of something serious to come was now overshadowing 
his mind for the first time. 

“Rosamond!” he cried, “there is some mystery ” 

“There are no mysteries between us two, ” she interposed, 
quickly. “ There never have been any, love; there never 
shall be.” She moved a little nearer to him to take her old 
favorite place on his knee, then checked herself, and drew 
back again to the tcable. Warning tears in her eyes bade 
her distrust her own firmness, and read the letter where 
she could not feel the beating heart. 

“Did I tell you,” she resumed, after waiting an instant 
to compose herself, “ where I found the folded piece of 
paper which I put into your hand in the Myrtle Room?” 

“ No,” he replied, “ I think not.” 

“ I found it at the back of the frame of that picture— 
the picture of the ghostly woman with the wicked face. I 
opened it immediately, and saw that it was a letter. The 
address inside, the first line under it, and one of the two 
signatures which it contained, were in a handwriting that 
I knew.” 

“Whose?” 

“ The handwriting of the late Mrs. Treverton,” 

“ Of your mother?” 

“ Of the late Mrs. Treverton.” 

“ Gracious God, Rosamond! why do you speak of her in 
that way?” 

“ Let me read, and you will know. You have seen, with 
my eyes, Avhat the Myrtle Room is like ; you have seen, with 
niy eyes, every object which the search through it brought 
to light; you must now see, with my eyes, what this letter 
contains. It i^ the Secret of the Myrtle Room.” 

She bent close over the faint, faded writing, and read 
these words . 


242 


THE DEAD SECRET 


“To MY Husband,— We have parted, Arthur, forever, 
and I have not had the courage to imbitter our farewell by 
confessing that I have deceived you — cruelly and basely de- 
ceived you. But a few minutes since, you were weeping 
by my bedside and speaking of our child. My wronged, 
my beloved husband, the little daughter of your heart is not 
yours, is not mine. She is a love-child, whom I have im- 
posed on you for mine. Her father was a miner at Forth- 
genna ; her mother is my maid, Sarah Leeson. ’ ’ 

Kosamond paused, but never raised her head from the 
letter. She heard her husband lay his hand suddenly on 
the table : she heard him start to his feet ; she heard him 
draw his breath heavily in one quick gasp; she heard him 
whisper to himself the instant after — “A love child!” 
With a fearful, painful distinctness she heard those three 
words. The tone in which he whispered them turned her 
cold. But she never moved, for there was more to read ; 
and while more remained, if her life had depended on it, 
she could not have looked up. 

In a moment more she went on, and read these lines 
next : 

“ I have many heavy sins to answer for, but this one sin 
you must pardon, Arthur, for I committed it through 
fondness for you. That fondness told me a secret which 
you sought to hide from me. That fondness told me that 
your barren wife would never make your heart all her own 
until she had borne you a child ; and your lips proved it 
true. Your first words, when you came back from sea, 
and w^hen the infant was placed in 3 ^ our arms, were — ‘ I 
have never loved you, Eosamond, as 1 love you now.’ If 
you had not said that, I should never have kept my guilty 
secret. 

‘ ‘ I can add no more, for death is very near me. How 
the fraud was committed, and what my other motives 
were, I must leave you to discover from the mother of the 
child, who writes this under my dictation, and who is 
charged to give it to you when I am no more. You will be 
merciful to the poor little creature w^ho bears my name. 
Be merciful also to her unhappy parent: she is only guilty 
of too blindly obeying me. If there is anything that miti- 
gates the bitterness of my remorse, it is the remembrance 
that my act of deceit saved the most faithful and most 
affectionate of women from shame that she had not de- 
served. Eemember me forgivingly, Arthur — w^ords may 
tell how I have sinned agaijist you ; no words can tell how 
I have loved you !” 

+ ^ ^ 5f« 

She had struggled on thus far, and had reached the last 


THE DEAD SECRET 


243 


line on the second page of the letter, when she paused 
again, and then tried to read the first of the two signatures 
— ‘ ‘ Eosamond Tre verton. ’ ’ She faintly repeated two sylla - 
hies of that familiar Christian name — the name that was 
on her husband’s lips every hour of the day !— and strove 
to articulate the third, but her voice failed her. All the 
sacred household memories which that ruthless letter had 
profaned forever seemed to tear themselves away from her 
heart at the same moment. With a low, moaning cry she 
dropped her arms on the table, and laid her head down on 
them, and hid her face. 

She heard nothing, she was conscious of nothing, until 
she felt a touch on her shoulder— a light touch from a hand 
that trembled. Every pulse in her body bounded in an- 
swer to it, and she looked up. 

Her husband had guided'*liimself near to her by the table. 
The tears were glistening in his dim, sightless eyes. As she 
rose and touched him, his arms opened, and closed fast 
around her. 

“My own Eosamond!” he said, “come to me and be 
comforted I’ ’ 


-o- 


BOOJC VI. 


CHAPTEE I. 

UNCLE JOSEPH. 

The day and the night had passed, and the new morning 
had come, before the husband and wife could trust them- 
selves to speak calmly of the Secret, and to face resignedly 
the duties and the sacrifices which the discovery of it im- 
posed on them. 

Leonard’s first question referred to those lines in the let- 
ter which Eosamond had informed him were in a hand- 
writing that she knew. Finding that he was at a loss to 
understand what means she could have of forming an 
opinion on this point, she explained that, after Captain 
Treverton’s death, many letters had naturally fallen into 
her possession which had been written by Mrs. Tre verton 
to her husband. They treated of ordinary domestic sub- 
jects, and she had read them often enough to bec^ome 
thoroughly acquainted with the peculiarities of Mrs. Tre- 
verton’s handwriting. It was remarkably large, firm, and 
masculine in character ; and the address, the line under it, 


244 


THE DEAD SECRET 


and the uppermost of the two signatures in the letter 
which had been found in the Myrtle Eoom, exactly re- 
sembled it in every particular. 

The next question related to the body of the letter. The 
writing of this, of the second signature (“ Sarah Leeson ”), 
and of the additional lines on the third page, also signed by 
Sarah Leeson, proclaimed itself in each case to be the pro- 
duction of the same person. While stating that fact to 
her husband, Eosamond did not forget to explain to him 
that, while reading the letter on the previous day, her 
strength and courage had failed her before she got to the 
end of it. She added that the postscript which she had 
thus omitted to read was of importance, because it men- 
tioned the circumstances under which the secret had 'been 
hidden ; and begged that he would listen while she made 
him acquainted with its contents without any further 
delay. 

Sitting as close to his side, now, as if they were enjoying 
their first honeymoon days over again, she read these last 
lines— the lines which her mother had written sixteen 
years before, on the morning when she fled from Porth- 
genna Tower: 

If this paper should ever be found (which I pray with 
my whole heart it never maybe), I wish to say that I have 
come to the resolution of hiding it, because I dare not show 
the writing that it contains to my master, to whom it is ad- 
dressed. In doing what I now propose to do, though I am 
acting against my mistress’ last wishes, I am not breaking 
the solemn engagement which she obliged me to make be- 
fore her on her death-bed. That engagement forbids me 
to destroy this letter, or to take it away with me if I leave 
the house. I shall do neither — my purpose is to conceal it 
in the place, of all others, where I think there is least 
chance of its ever being found again. Any hardship or 
misfortune which may follow as a consequence of this de- 
ceitful proceeding on my part, will fall on myself. Others, 
I believe, in my conscience, will be the happier for the hid- 
ing of the dreadful Secret which this letter contains.” 

“There can be no doubt, now,” said Leonard, when his 
Avife had read to the end; “Mrs. Jazeph, Sarah Leeson, 
and the servant who disappeared from Porthgenna Tower, 
are one and the same person. ’ ’ 

“Poor creature!” said Eosamond, sighing as she put 
down the letter. “We knoAV now why she warned me so 
anxiously not to go into the Myrtle Eoom. Who can say 
what she must have suffered Avhen she came as a stranger 
to my bedside? Oh, what would I not give if I had been 
less hasty with her! It is dreadful to remember that I 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


245 


spoke to her as a servant whom I expected to obey me; it 
is worse still to feel that I cannot, even now^ think of her 
as a child should think of a mother. How can I ever tell 

her that I know the Secret? how ” She paused, with 

a heart-sick consciousness of the slur that was cast on her 
birth; she paused, shrinking as she thought of the name 
that her husband had given to her, and of her own parent- 
age, which the laws of society disdained to recognize. 

“ Why do you stop?” asked Leonard. 

“ I was afraid ” she began, and paused again. 

“Afraid,” he said, finishing the sentence for her, “ that 
words of pity for th4t unhappy woman might wound my 
sensitive pride by reminding me of the circumstances of 
your birth? Rosamond! I should be unworthy of your 
matchless truthfulness toward me, if I, on my side, did not 
acknowledge that this discovery tes wounded me as only a 
proud man can be wounded. My pride has been born and 
bred in me. My pride, even while I am now speaking to 
you, takes advantage of my first moments of composure, 
and deludes me into doubting, in face of all probability, 
whether the words you have read to me can, after all, be 
words of truth. But, strong as that inborn and inbred 
feeling is— hard as it may be for me to discipline and master 
it as I ought, and must and will — there is another feeling 
in my heart that is stronger yet. ” He felt for her hand, 
and took it in his ; then added : ‘ ‘ From the hour when you 
first devoted your life to your blind husband— from the hour 
when you won all his gratitude, as you had already won all 
his love, you took a place in his heart, Rosamond, from 
which nothing, not even such a shock as has now assailed 
us, can move you ! High as I have always held the worth 
of rank in my estimation, I have learned, even before the 
event of yesterday, to hold the worth of my wife, let her 
parentage be what it may, higher still. ’ ’ 

“ Oh, Lenny, Lenny, I can’t hear you praise me, if you 
talk in the same breath as if I had made a sacrifice in 
marrying you I But for my blind husband I might never 
have deserved what you have just said of me. When I 
first read that fearful letter, I had one moment of vile, un- 
grateful doubt if your love for me would hold out against 
the discovery of the Secret. I had one moment of horrible 
temptation that drew me away from you when I ought to 
have put the letter into your hand. It was the sight of 
you, waiting for me to speak again, so innocent of all 
knowledge of what happened close by you, that brought 
me back to my senses, and told me what I ought to do. It 
was the sight of my blind husband that made me conquer 
the temptation to destroy that letter in the first hour of 
discovering it. Oh, if I had been the hardest-hearted of 


S46 


THE DEAD SECUET, 


women, could I have ever taken your hand again— could 1 
kiss you, could I lie down by your side, and hear you fall 
asleep, night after night, feeling that I had abused your 
blind dependence on me to serve my own selfish interests? 
knowing that I had only succeeded in my deceit because 
your affliction made you incapable of suspecting deception ? 
No, no; lean hardly believe that the basest of women 
could be guilty of such baseness as that ; and I can claim 
nothing more for myself than the credit of having been true 
to my trust. You said yesterday, love, in the Myrtle 
Eoom, that the one faithful friend to you in your blindness, 
who never failed, was your wife. It is reward enough and 
consolation enough for me, now that the worst is over, to 
know that you can say so still.” 

“Yes, Eosamond,. the worst is over; but we must not 
forget that there may be hard trials still to meet.” 

“Hard trials, love? To what trials do you refer?” 

“Perhaps, Eosamond, I overrate the courage that the 
sacrifice demands ; but, to me at least, it will be a hard sac- 
rifice of my own feelings to make strangers partakers in 
the knowledge that we now possess.” 

Eosamond looked at her husband in astonishment. 
“ Why need we tell the Secret to any one?” she asked. 

“ Assuming that we can satisfy ourselves of the genuine- 
ness of that letter,” he answered, “ we shall have no choice 
but to tell it to strangers. You cannot forget the circum- 
stances under which your father— under which Captain 
Treverton ” 

“Call him my father,” said Eosamond, sadly. “Ee- 
member how he loved me, and how I loved him, and say 
‘ my father ’ still.” 

“I am afraid I must say ‘Captain Treverton’ now,” 
returned Leonard, “ or I shall hardly be able to explain 
simply and plainly what it is very necessary that you 
should know. Captain Treverton died without leaving a 
will. His only property was the purchase-money of this 
house and estate; and you inherited it as his next of 
kin ” 

Eosamond started back in her chair and clasped her 
hands in dismay. “ Oh, Lenny,” she said, simply, “ I have 
thought so much of you, since I found the letter, that I 
never remembered this!” 

“It is time to remember it, my love. If you are not 
Captain Treverton’s daughter, you have no right to one 
farthing of the fortune that you possess ; and it must be 
restored at once to the person who is Captain Treverton’s 
next of kin — or, in other words, to his brother.” 

“To that man!” exclaimed Eosamond. To that man 
who is a stranger to us, who holds our very name in con^ 


THE DEAD SECRET. 247 

tempt! Are we to be made poor that he may be made 
rich ?’ ’ 

“ We are to do what is honorable and just, at any sacri- 
fice of our own interests and ourselves,” said Leonard, 
firmly. “I believe, Rosamond, that my consent, as your 
husband, is necessary, according to the law, to effect this 
restitution. If Mr. Andrew Treverton was the bitterest 
enemy I had on earth, and if the restoring of this money 
utterly ruined us both in our worldly circumstances, I 
would give it back of my own accord to the last farthing— 
and so would you 1” 

The blood mantled in his cheeks as he spoke. Rosamond 
looked at him admiringly in silence. “Who would have 
him less proud,” she thought, fondly, “when his pride 
speaks in such words as those!” 

“You understand now,” continued Leonard, “ that we 
have duties to perform which will oblige us to seek help 
from others, and which will therefore render it impossible 
to keep the secret to ourselves? If we search all England 
for her, Sarah Leeson must be found. Our future actions 
depend upon her answers to our inquiries, upon her testi- 
mony to the genuineness of that letter. Although I am 
resolved beforehand to shield myself behind no technical 
quibbles and delays — although I want nothing but evidence 
that is morally conclusive, however legally imperfect it may 
be — it is still impossible to proceed without seeking advice 
immediately. The lawyer who always managed Captain 
Treverton’s affairs, and who now manages ours, is the 
proper person to direct us in instituting a search, and to 
assist us, if necessary, in making the restitution.” 

“ How quietly and firmly you speak of it, Lenny! Will 
not the abandoning of my fortune be a dreadful loss to us?” 

“We must think of it as a gain to our consciences, Ros- 
amond, and must alter our way of life resignedly to suit our 
altered means. But we need speak no more of that until 
we are assured of the necesMty of restoring the money. My 
immediate anxiety, and your immediate anxiety, must turn 
now on the discovery of Sarah Leeson — no ! on the discov- 
ery of your mother ; I must learn to call her by that name, 
or I shall not learn to pity and forgive her.” 

Rosamond nestled closer to her husband’s side. “ Every 
word you say, love, does my heart good,” she whispered, 
laying her head on his shoulder. “ You will help me and 
strengthen me, when the time comes, to meet my mother 
as I ought? Oh, how pale and worn and weary she was 
when she stood by my bedside, and looked at me and my 
child! Will it be long before we find her? Is she far 
away from us, I wonder? or nearer, much nearer than we 
think?” 


248 


THE DEAD SECRET 


Before Leonard could answer, he was interrupted by a 
knock at the door, and Eosamond was surprised by the ap- 
pearance of the maid-servant. Betsey was flushed, excited, 
and out of breath; but she contrived to deliver intelligibly 
a brief message from Mr. M under, the steward, requesting 
permission to speak to Mr. Frankland, or to Mrs. Frank- 
land, on business of importance. 

“ What is it? What does he want?” asked Eosamond. 

” I think, ma’am, he wants to know whether he had bet- 
ter send for the constable or not, ’ ’ answered Betsey. 

“Send for the constable!” repeated Eosamond. “Are 
there thieves in the house in broad daylight?” 

“Mr. Munder says he don’t know but what it may be 
worse than thieves,” replied Betsey. “It’s the foreigner 
again, if you please, ma’am. He come up and rung at the 
door as bold as brass, and asked if he could see Mrs. Frank- 
land.” 

“ The foreigner!” exclaimed Eosamond, laying her hand 
eagerly on her husband’s arm. 

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Betsey. “ Him as come here to go 
over the house along with the lady ” 

Eosamond, with characteristic impulsiveness, started to 
her feet. “ Let me go down !” she began. 

“ Wait,” interposed Leonard, catching her by the hand. 
“There is not the least need for you to go down-stairs. 
Show the foreigner up here,” he continued, addressing 
himself to Betsey, “ and tell Mr. Munder that we will take 
the management of this business into our own hands.” 

Eosamond sat down again by her husband’s side. “ This 
is a very strange accident,” she said, in a low, serious 
tone. “It must be something more than mere chance 
that puts the clew into our hands, at the moment when 
we least expected to find it.” 

The door opened for the second time, and there ap- 
peared, modestly, on the threshold, a little old man, with 
rosy cheeks and long white hair. A small leather case 
was slung by a strap at his side, and the stem of a pipe 
peeped out of the breast-pocket of his coat. He advanced 
one step into the room, stopped, raised both his hands, 
with his felt hat crumpled up in them^ to his heart, and 
made five fantastic bows in quick succession — two to Mrs. 
Frankland, two to her husband, and one to Mrs. Frank- 
land again, as an act of separate and special homage to the 
lady. Never had Eosamond seen a more complete em- 
bodiment in human form of perfect innocence and perfect 
harmlessness than the foreigner who was described in the 
housekeeper’s letter as an audacious vagabond, and who 
was dreaded by Mr, Munder as something worse than a 
thief ! 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


m 


“Madame and good sir,” said the old maa, advancing a 
little nearer at Mrs. Frankland’s invitation, ” I ask your 
pardon for intruding myself. My name is Joseph Busch- 
mann, I live in the town of Truro, where I work in cabi • 
nets and tea-caddies, and other shining woods. I am also, 
if you please, the same little foreign man who was scolded 
by the big major-domo when I came to see the house. All 
that I ask of your kindness is, that you will let me say for 
my errand here and for myself, and for another person who 
is very near to my love — one little word. I will be but 
few minutes, madame and good sir, and then I will go my 
ways again, with my best wishes and my best thanks. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Pray consider, Mr. Buschmann, that our time is your 
time, ’ ’ said Leonard. “We have no engagement whatever 
which need oblige you to shorten your visit. I must tell 
you beforehand, in order to prevent any embarrassment on 
either side, that I have the misfortune to be blind. I can 
promise you, however, my best attention as far as listening 
goes. Eosamond, is Mr. Buschmann seated?” 

Mr. Buschmann was still standing near the door, and 
was expressing sympathy by bowing to Mr. Prankland 
again, and crumpling his felt hat once more over his heart. 

“Pray come nearer, and sit down,” said Eosamond. 

“ And don't imagine for one moment that any opinion of 
the steward’s has the least influence on us, or that we 
feel it at all necessary for you to apologize for what took 
place the last time you came to this house. We have an 
interest — a very great interest,^’ she added, with her usual 
hearty frankness, “in hearing anything that you have to 
tell us. You are the person of all others whom we are, 

just at this time ” She stopped, feeling her feet. 

touched by her husband’s, and rightly interpreting the 
action as a warning not to speak too unrestrainedly to the 
visitor before he had explained his object in coming to the 
house. 

Looking very much pleased, and a little surprised also, 
when he heard Eosamond’s last words. Uncle Joseph drew 
a chair near to the table by which Mr. and Mrs. Prankland 
w^ere sitting, crumpled his felt hat up smaller than ever, 
and put it in one of his side pockets, drew from the other a 
little packet of letters, placed them on his knees as he sat 
down, patted them gently with both hands, and entered on 
his explanation in these terms : 

“Madame and good sir,” he began, “before I can say 
comfortably my little word, I must, with your leave, travel 
backward to the last time when I came to this house in 
company with my niece.” 

“Your niece!” exclaimed Eosamond and Leonard, both 
speaking together. 


250 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


“My niece, S?irah,” said Uncle Joseph, “the only child 
of my sister Agatha. It is for the love of Sarah, if you 
please, that I am here now. She is the one last morsel of 
my flesh and blood that is left to me in the world. The 
rest, they are all gone! My wife, my little Joseph, my 
brother Max, my sister Agatha and the husband she mar- 
ried, the good and noble Englishman, Leeson— they are 
all, all gone!” 

“ Leeson,” said Eosamond, pressing her husband's hand 
significantly under the table. “Your niece’s name is 
Sarah Leeson?” 

Uncle Joseph sighed and shook his head. “ One day,” 
he said, ‘ ‘ of all the days in the year the evilmost for Sarah, 
she changed that name. Of the man she married — who is 
dead now, madame — it is little or nothing I know but 
this: His name was Jazeph, and he used her ill, for which 
I think him the First Scoundrel ! Yes, ’ ’ exclaimed Uncle 
Joseph, with the nearest approach to anger and bitterness 
which his nature was capable of making, and with an idea 
that he was using one of the strongest superlatives in the 
language. “Yes! if he was to come to life again at this 
very moment of time, I would say it of him to liis face — 
Englishman Jazeph, you are the First Scoundrel!” 

Eosamond pressed her husband’s hand for the second 
time. If her own convictions had not already identified 
Mrs. Jazeph with Sarah Leeson, the old man’s last words 
must have amply sufficed to assure them that both names 
had been borne by the same person. 

“Well, then, I shall now travel backward to the time 
Avhen I was here with Sarah, my niece,” resumed Uncle 
Joseph. “I must, if you please, speak the truth in this 
business, or, now that I am already backward where I 
want to be, I shall stick fast in my place, and get on no 
more for the rest of my life. Sir, and good madame, will 
you have the great kindness to forgive me and Sarah, my 
niece, if I confess that it was not to see the house that w^e 
came here and rang at the bell, and gave deal of trouble, 
and wasted much breath of the big major-domo’s with the 
scolding that we got. It was only to do one curious little 
. thing that we came together to this place — or, no, it was 
all about a secret of Sarah’s, which is still as black and 
dark to me as the middle of the blackest and darkest night 
that ever was in the world — and as I nothing knew about 
it, except that there was no harm in it to anybody or any- 
thing, and that Sarah was determined to go, and that I 
could not let her go by herself; as also for the good reason 
that she told me that she had the best righf of anybody 
to take the letter and to hide it again, seeing that she was 
afraid of its being found if loiiger in that room she left it, 


THE DEAD SECEET. 


251 


which was the room where she had hidden it before — why, 
so it happened that I— no, that she — no, no, that 1—Ach 
Gottr’’ cried Uncle Joseph, striking his forehead in de- 
spair, and relieving himself by an invocation in his own 
language. “ I am lost in my own muddlement ; and where- 
abouts the right place is, and how am J to get myself back 
into it, as I am a living sinner, is more than I know.” 

“ There is not the least need to go back on our account,” 
said Eosamond, forgetting all caution and self-restraint in 
her anxiety to restore the old man’s confidence and com- 
posure. “Pray don’t try to repeat your explanations. 
We know already ” 

“We will suppose,” said Leonard, interposing abruptly 
before his wife could add another word, “that we kiiow 
already everything you can desire to tell us in relation to 
your niece’s secret, and to your motives for desiring to see 
the house.” 

“You will suppose that!” exclaimed Uncle Joseph, look- 
ing greatly relieved. “Ah! thank you, sir, and you, good 
madame, a thousand times for helping me out of my own 
muddlement with a ‘suppose.’ I am all over confusion 
from my tops to my toes ; but I can go on now, I think, 
and lose myself no more. So! Let us say it in this way; 
I and Sarah, my niece, are in the house — that is the first 
‘ suppose.’ I and Sarah, my niece, are out of the house — 
that is the second ‘ suppose. ’ Good ! now we go on once 
more. On my way back to my own home at Truro, I am 
frightened for Sarah, because of the faint she fell into on 
your stairs here, and because of a look in her face that it 
makes me heavy at my heart to see. Also, I am sorry for 
her sake, because she has not done that one curious little 
thing which she came into the house to do. I fret about 
these same matters, but I console myself too; and my com- 
fort is that Sarah will stop with me in my house at Truro, 
and that I shall make her happy and well again, as soon 
as we are settled in our life together. Judge then, sir, 
what a blow falls on me when I hear that she will not make 
her home where I make mine. Judge you, also, good ma- 
dame, what my surprise must be, when I ask for her rea- 
son, and she tells me she must leave Uncle Joseph, because 
she is afraid of being found out by you. ’ ’ He stopped, and 
looking anxiously at Rosamond’s face, saw it sadden and 
turn away from him after he had spoken his last words. 
‘‘Are you sorry, madame, for Sarah, my niece? do you 
pity her?” he asked, with a little hesitation and trembling 
in his voice. 

“I pity her with my whole heart,” said Rosamond, 
warmly. 

“And with my whole heart, for that pity I thank you!’’ 


S52 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


rejoined Uncle Joseph. “Ah, madame, ' your kindness 
gives me the courage to go on, and to tell you that we 
parted from each other on the day of our getting back to 
Truro! When she came to see me this time, it was years 
and years, long and lonely and very many, since we two 
had met. I was afraid that many more would pass again, 
and T tried to make her stop with me to the very last. But 
V she had still the same fear to drive her away — the fear of 
being found and put to the question by you. So, with the 
j tears in her eyes (and in mine), and the grief at her heart 
(and at mine), she went away to hide herself in the empty 
bigness of the great city, London, which swallows up all 
people and all things that pour into it, and which lias now 
swallowed up Sarah, my niece, with the rest. ‘ My child, 
you will write sometimes to Uncle Joseph,’ I said, and she 
answered me, ‘ I will write qf ten. ’ It is three weeks now 
since that time, and here, oh my knee, are four letters she 
has written to me. I shall ask your leave to put them 
down open before you, because they will help me to get on 
further yet with what I must say, and because I see in 
your face, madame, that you are indeed sorry for Sarah, 
my niece, from your heart.” 

He untied the packet of letters, opened them, kissed 
them one by one, and put them down in a row on the 
table, smoothing them out carefully with his hand, and 
taking great pains to arrange them all in a perfectly 
straight line. A glance at the first of the little series 
showed Eosamond that the handwriting in it was the 
same as the handwriting in the body of the letter which 
had been found in the Myrtle Eoom. 

“ There is not much to read,” said Uncle Joseph. “But 
if you will look through them first, madame, I can tell you 
after all the reason for showing them that I have.” 

The old man was right. There was very little to read in 
the letters, and they grew progressively shorter as they 
became more recent in date. All four were written in the 
formal, conventionally correct style of a person taking up 
the pen with a fear of making mistakes in spelling and 
grammar, and were equally destitute of any personal par- 
ticulars relative to the writer ; all four anxiously entreated 
that Uncle Joseph would not be uneasy, inquired after his 
health, and expressed gratitude and love for him as 
warmly as their timid restraints of style would permit ; all 
four contained these two questions relating to Eosamond — 
First, had Mrs. Frankland arrived yet at Porthgenna 
Tower? Second, if she had arrived, what had Uncle 
Joseph heard about her? And, finally, all four gave the 
same instructions for addressing an answer — “Please di- 
rect tome, ‘S, J., Post-Office, Smith Street, London’”— 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


253 


followed by the same apology, ‘ ‘ Excuse my not giving my 
address, in case of accidents ; for even in London I am still 
afraid of being followed and found out. I send every 
morning for letters; so I am sure to get your answer.” 

“I told you, madame,” said the old man, when Rosa- 
mond raised her head from the letters, “that I was fright- 
ened and sorry for Sarah when she left me. Now see, if 
you please, why I got more frightened and more sorry yet, 
when I have all the four letters that she writes to me. 
They begin here, with the first, at my left hand ; and they 
grow shorter, and shorter, and shorter, as they get nearer 
to my right, till the last is ^ but eight little lines. Again, ‘ 
see, if you please. The writing of the first letter, here, at 
my left hand, is very fine — I mean it is very fine to me, be- 
cause I love Sarah, and because I write very badly myself; 
but it is not so good in the second letter— it shakes a little, 
it blots a little, it crooks itself a little in the last lines. In 
the third it is worse — more shake, more blot, more crook. 
In the fourth, where there is least to do, there is still more 
shake, still more blot, still more crook, than in all the other 
three put together. I see this ; I remember that she was 
weak and worn and weary when she left me, and I say to 
myself, ‘ She is ill, though she will not tell it, for the writ- 
ing betrays her !’ ” 

Rosamond looked down again at the letters, and followed 
the significant changes for the worse in the handwriting, 
line by line, as the old man pointed them out. 

“Isay to myself that,” he continued; “I wait, and 
think a little; and I hear my own heart whisper to me, 

‘ Go you. Uncle Joseph, to London, and, while there is yet 
time, bring her back to be cured and comforted and made 
happy in your own home.’ After that I wait, and think 
a little again — not about leaving my business; I would 
leave it forever sooner than Sarah should come to harm 
— but about what I am to do to get her to come back. 
That thought makes me look at the letters again ; the let- 
ters show me always the same questions about Mistress 
Frankland ; I see it plainly as my own hand before me 
that I shall never get Sarah, my niece, back, unless I can 
make easy her mind about those questions of Mistress 
Frankland ’s that she dreads as if there was death to her 
in every one of them. I see it ! it makes my pipe go out ; 
it drives me up from my chair; it puts my hat on my 
head ; it brings me here, where I have once intruded my- 
self already, and where I have no right, I know, to intrude 
myself again; it makes me beg and pray now, of your 
compassion for my niece and of your goodness for me, 
that you will not deny me the means of bringing Sarah 
back. If I may only say to her, I have seen Mistress 


554 


THE DEAD SECRET 


Frankland, and she has told me with her own lips that she 
will ask none of those questions that you fear so much — 
if I may only say that, Sarah will come back with me, and 
I shall thank you every day of my life for making me a 
happy man!” 

The simple eloquence of his words, the innocent earnest- 
ness of his manner, touched Rosamond to the heart. “I 
will do anything, I will promise anything,” she answered 
eagerl}^, ‘ ‘ to help you to bring her back 1 If she will only 
let me see her, I promise not to say one word that she 
would not wish me to say ; I promise not to ask one ques- 
tion — no, not one — that it will pain her to answer. Oh, 
Avhat comforting message can I send besides? what can I 

say ” She stopped confusedly, feeling her husband’s 

foot touching hers again. 

“Ah, say no more! say no more!” cried Uncle Joseph, 
tying up his little packet of letters, with his eyes sparkling 
and his ruddy face all in a glow. ” Enough said to bring 
Sarah back ! enough said to make me grateful for all my 
life ! Oh, I am so happy, so happy, so happy— my skin is 
too small to hold me!” He tossed up the packet of letters 
into the air, caught it, kissed it, and put it back again in 
his pocket, all in an instant. 

“You are not going?” said Rosamond. “Surely you 
are not going yet?” 

“ It is my loss to go away from here, which I must put 
up with, because it is also my gain to get sooner to Sarah,” 
replied Uncle Joseph. “ For that reason only,^ I shall ask 
your pardon if I take my leave with my heart full of 
thanks, and go my ways home again. ’ ’ 

“When do you propose to start for London, Mr. Busch- 
mann?” inquired Leonard. 

“To-morrow, in the morning early, sir,” replied Uncle 
Joseph. “ I shall finish the work that I must do to-night, 
and shall leave the rest to Samuel (who is my very good 
friend, and my shopman too), and shall then go to Sarah 
by the first coach.” 

“ May I ask for your niece’s address in London, in case 
we wish to write to you?” 

“She gives me no address, sir, but the post-office; for 
even at the great distance of Londoii, the same fear that 
she had all the way from this house still sticks to her. But 
here is the place where I shall get my own bed,” continued 
the old man, producing a small shop-card. “It is the 
house of a countryman of my own, a fine baker of buns, 
sir, and a very good man indeed.” 

“Have y^ou thought of any plan for finding out your 
niece’s address?” inquired Rosamond, copying the direc- 
tion on the card while she spoke. 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


255 


“ Ah, yes — for I am always quick at making my plans,” 
said Uncle Joseph. “ I shall present myself to the master 
of the post, and to him I shall say just this and no more — 
“ Good-morning, sir. I am the man who writes the letters 
to S. J. She is my niece, if you please ; and all that I want 
to know is — Where does she live?’ There is something 
like a plan, I think? Aha!” He spread out both his hands 
interrogatively, and looked at Mrs. Frankland with a self- 
satisfied smile. 

“I am afraid,” said Eosamond, partly amused, partly 
touched by his simplicity, ‘ ‘ that the people at the post- 
office are not at all likely to be trusted with the address. 
I think you would do better to take a letter with you, 
directed to ‘ S. J. to deliver it in the morning when let- 
ters are received from the country ; to wait near the door, 
and then to follow the person who is sent by your niece (as 
she tells you herself) to ask for letters for S. J.” 

“You think that is better?” said Uncle Joseph, secretly 
convinced that his own idea was unquestionably the most 
ingenious of the two. “ Good! The least little word that 
you say to me, madame, is a command that I follow with 
all my heart.” He took the crumpled felt hat out of his 
pocket, and advanced to say farewell, when Mr. Frankland 
spoke to him again. 

“ If you find your niece well, and willing to travel,” said 
Leonard, “ you will bring her back to Truro at once? And 
you will let us know when you are both at home again?” 

“At once, sir,” said Uncle Joseph. “To both these 
questions, I say. At once.” 

“If a week from this time passes,” continued Leonard, 
“ and we hear nothing from you, we must conclude, then, 
either that some unforeseen obstacle stands in the way of 
your return, or that your fears on your niece’s account 
have been but too well-founded, and that she is not able to 
travel?” 

“Yes, sir; so let it be. But I hope you will hear from 
me before the week is out.” 

“Oh, so do I! most earnestly, most anxiously!” said 
Rosamond. “ You remember my message?” 

“I have got it here, every word of it,” said Uncle 
Joseph, touching his heart. He raised the hand which 
Rosamond held out to him to his lips. “I shall try to 
thank you b^ter when I have come back, ” he said. “For 
all your kindness to me and to my niece, God bless you 
both, and keep you happy, till we meet again.” With 
these words, he hastened to the door, waved his hand 
gayly, with the old crumpled hat in it, and went out. 
“Pear, simple, warm-hearted old man!” said Rosa- 




256 


THE DEAD SECBET, 


mond, as the door closed. “ I wanted to tell him every- 
thing, Lenny. Why did you stop me!” 

‘ ‘ My love, it is that very simplicity which you admire, 
and which I admire, too, that makes me cautious. At the 
first sound of his voice I felt as warmly toward him as you 
do ; but the more I heard him talk the more convinced I 
became that it would be rash to trust him, at first, for fear 
of his disclosing too abruptly to your mother that we know 
her secret. Our chance of winning her confidence and ob- 
taining an interview with her depends, I can see, upon our 
own tact in dealing with her exaggerated suspicions and 
her nervous fears. That good old man, with the best and 
kindest intentions in the world, might ruin everything. 
He will have done all that we can hope for, and all that 
we can wish, if he only succeeds in bringing her back to 
Truro.” 

“ But if he fails?— if anything happens?— if she is really 
ill?” 

‘ ‘ Let us wait till the week is over, Eosamond. It will 
be time enough then to decide what we shall do next.” 

CHAPTER II. 

WAITING AND HOPING. 

The week of expectation passed, and no tidings from 
Uncle Joseph reached Portbgenna Tower. 

On the eigth day Mr. Frankland sent a messenger to 
Truro, with orders to find out the cabinet-maker’s shop 
kept by Mr. Buschmann, and to inquire of the person left 
in charge there whether he had received any news from 
his master. The messenger returned in the afternoon, and 
brought word that Mr. Buschmann had written one short 
note to his shopman since his departure, announcing that 
he had arrived safely toward night-fall in London ; that he 
had met with a hospitable welcome from his countryman, 
the German baker; and that he had discovered his niece's 
address, but had been prevented from seeing her by an ob- 
stacle which he hoped would be removed at his next visit. 
Since the delivery of that note, no further communication 
had been received from him, and nothing therefore was 
known of the period at which he might be expected to re- 
turn. 

The one fragment of intelligence thus obtained was not 
of a nature to relieve the depression of spirits which the 
doubt and suspense of the past week had produced in Mrs. 
Frankland. Her husband endeavored to combat the op- 
pression of mind from which she was suffering, by remind- 
ing her that the ominous silence of Uncle Joseph might be 
;just} as probably occasioned by his niece’s unwillmgness as 


THE DEAD ^ECEET. 


by ber inability to return with him to Truro. Remember- 
ing the obstacle at which the old man’s letter hinted, and 
taking also into consideration her excessive sensitiveness 
and her unreasoning timidity, he declared it to be quite 
possible that Mrs. Frankland’s message, instead of reas- 
suring her, might only inspire her with fresh apprehen- 
sions, and might consequently strengthen her resolution to 
keep herself out of reach of all communication from 
Porthgenna Tower. 

Rosamond listened patiently while this view of the care 
was placed before her, and acknowledged that the reason- 
ableness of it was beyond dispute; but her readiness in ad 
mitting that her husband might be right and that she 
might be wrong, was accompanied by no change for th(‘ 
better in the condition of her spirits. The interpretation 
which the old man had placed upon the alteration for the 
Avorse in Mrs. Jazeph’s handwriting had produced a vivid 
impression on her mind, Avhich had been strengthened by 
her own recollection of her mother’s pale, worn face when 
they met as strangers at West Winston. Reason, therefore, 
as convincingly as he might, Mr. Frankland was unable to 
shake his wife’s conviction that the obstacle mentioned in 
Uncle Joseph’s letter, and the silence which he had main- 
tained since, were referable alike to the illness of his niece. 

The return of the messenger from Truro suggested, be- 
sides this topic of discussion, another question of much 
greater importance. After having waited one day beyond 
t he week that had been appointed, what Avas the proper 
course of action for Mr. and Mrs. Frankland now to adopt, 
in the absence of any information from London or from 
Truro to decide their future proceedings? 

Leonard’s first idea was to Avrite immediately to Uncle 
Joseph, at the address which he had given on the occasion 
ot his visit to Porthgenna ToAver. When this project was 
communicated to Rosamond, she opposed it, on the ground 
that the necessary delay before the answer to the letter 
could arrive Avould involve a serious waste of time, when 
it might, for aught they knew to the contrary, be of the 
last importance to them not to risk the loss of a single day. 
If illness prevented Mrs. Jazeph from traveling, it would 
be necessary to see her at once, because that illness might 
increase. If she were only suspicious of their motives, it 
Avas equally important to open personal communications 
with her before she could find an opportunity of raising 
some fresh obstacle, and of concealing herself again in 
some place of refuge which Uncle Joseph himself might 
not be able to trace. 

The truth of these conclusions Avas obvious, but Leonard 
hesitated to adopt them, because they involved the neces- 


258 


TtiE DEAD SECRET, 


sity of a journey to London. If he went there without his 
wife, his blindness placed him at the mercy of strangers 
and servants, in conducting investigations of the most 
delicate and most private nature. If Rosamond accom- 
panied him, it would be necessary to’risk all kinds of delays 
and inconveniences by taking the "child with them on a 
long and wearisome journey of more than two hundred 
and fifty miles. 

Rosamond met both these difficulties with her usual di- 
rectness and decision. The idea of her husband traveling 
anywhere, under any circumstances, in his helpless, de- 
pendent state, without liaving her to attend on him, she 
dismissed at once as too preposterous for consideration. 
The second objection, of subjecting the child to the chances 
and fatigues of a long journey, she met by proposing that 
they should travel to Exeter at their own time and in their 
own conveyance, and that they should afterward insure 
plenty of comfort and plenty of room by taking a carriage 
to themselves when they reached the railroad at Exeter. 

After thus smoothing away the difficulties which seemed 
to set themselves in opposition to the journey, she again 
reverted to the absolute necessity of undertaking it. She 
reminded Leonard of the serious interest that they both 
had in immediately obtaining Mrs. Jazeph’s testimony to 
the genuineness of the letter which had been found in the 
Myrtle Room, as well as in ascertaining all the details of 
the extraordinary fraud which had been practiced by Mrs. 
Treverton on her husband. She pleaded also her own nat- 
ural anxiety to make all the atonement in her power for 
the pain she must have unconsciously inflicted, in the bed- 
room at West Winston, on the person of all others whose 
failings and sorrows she was most bound to respect ; and 
having thus stated the motives which urged her husband 
and herself to lose no time in communicating personally 
with Mrs. Jazeph, she again drew the inevitable conclusion 
that there was no alternative, in the position in which they 
were now placed, but to start forthwith on the journey to 
London. 

A little further consideration satisfied Leonard that the 
emergency was of such a nature as to render all attempts 
to meet it by half measures impossible. He felt that his 
own convictions agreed with his wife’s; and he resolved 
accordingly to act at once, without further indecision or 
further delay. Before the evening was over, the servants 
at Porthgenna were amazed by receiving directions to pack 
the trunks for traveling, and to order horses at the post- 
town for an early hour the next morning. ^ 

On the first day of the journey the travelers started as 
soon as the carriage was ready, rested on the road toward 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


259 


noon, and remained for the night at Liskeard. On the sec- 
ond day they arrived at Exeter and slept there. On the 
third day they reached London by the railway between six 
and seven o’clock in the evening. 

When they were comfortably settled for the night at 
their hotel, and when an hour’s rest and quiet had enabled 
them to recover a little after the fatigues of the journey, 
Rosamond wrote two notes under her husband’s direction. 
The first was addressed to Mr. Buschmann; it simply in- 
formed Inm of their arrival, and of their earnest desire to 
see him at the hotel as early as possible the next morning, 
and it concluded by cautioning him to wait until he had 
seen them before he announced their presence in London to 
his niece. 

The second note was addressed to the family solicitor, 
Mr. Nixon — the same gentleman who, more than a year 
since, had written, at Mrs. Frankland’s request, the letter 
which informed Andrew Treverton of his brother’s de- 
cease, and of the circumstances under which the captain 
had died. All that Rosamond now wrote, in her husband’s 
name and her own, to ask of Mr. Nixon, was that he 
would endeavor to call at their hotel on his way to busi- 
ness the next morning, to give his, opinion on a private 
matter of great importance, which had obliged them to 
undertake tlie journey from Porthgenna to London. This 
note and the note to Uncle Joseph were sent to their re- 
spective addresses by a messenger on the evening when 
they were written. 

The first visitor who arrived the next morning was the 
solicitor — a clear-headed, fiuent, polite old gentleman, who 
had known Captain Treverton and his father before him. 
He came to the hotel fully expecting to be consulted on 
some difficulties connected with the Porthgenna estate, 
which the local agent was perhaps unable to settle, and 
which might be of too confused and intricate a nature to 
be easily expressed in writing. When he heard what the 
emergency really was, and when the letter that had been 
found in the Myrtle Room was placed in his hands, it is not 
too much to say that, for the first time in the course of a 
long life and a varied practice among all sorts and condi- 
tions of clients, sheer astonishment utterly paralyzed Mr. 
Nixon’s faculties and bereft him for some moments of the 
power of uttering a single word. 

When, however, Mr. Frankland proceeded from making 
the disclosure to announcing his resolution to give up the 
purchase- money of Porthgenna Tower, if the genuineness 
of the letter could be proved to his own satisfaction, the 
old lawyer recovered the use of his tongue immediately, 
and protested against his client’s intention with the sincere 


m 


THE DEAD SECEET, 


warmth of a man who thoroughly understood the advan-^ 
tage of being rich, and who knew what it was to gain and 
to lose a fortune of forty thousand pounds. 

Leonard listened with patient attention wdiile Mr. Nixon 
argued from his professional point of view against regard- 
ing the letter, taken by itself, as a genuine document, and 
against accepting Mrs. Jazeph’s evidence, taken with it, as 
decisive on the subject of Mrs. Frankland’s real parentage. 
He expatiated on the improbability of Mrs. Treverton’s al- 
leged fraud upon her husband having been committed with- 
out other persons besides her maid and herself being in the 
secret. He declared it to be in accordance with all received 
experience of human nature that one or more of those 
other persons must have spoken of the secret, either from 
malice or from want of caution, and that the consequent 
exposure of the truth must, in the course of so long a 
period as twenty- two years, have come to the knowledge 
of some among the many people in the West of England, 
as well as in London, who knew the Treverton family per- 
sonally or by reputation. From this objection he passed 
to another, which admitted the possible genuineness of the 
letter as a written document ; but which pleaded the prob- 
ability of its having been produced under the influence of 
some mental delusion on Mrs. Treverton’s part which her 
maid might have had an interest in humoring at the time, 
though she might have hesitated after her mistress’ death 
at risking the possible consequences of attempting to profit 
by the imposture. 

Having stated this theory, as one which not only ex- 
plained the writing of the letter, but the hiding of it also, Mr. 
Nixon further observed, in reference to Mrs. Jazeph, that 
any evidence she might give was of little or no value in a 
legal point of view, from the difiiculty — or, he might say, 
the impossibility — of satisfactorily identifying the infant 
mentioned in the letter with the lady whom he had now 
the honor of addressing as Mrs. Frankland, and whom no 
unsubstantiated document in existence should induce him 
to belieVe to be any other than the daughter of bis old 
friend and client. Captain Treverton. 

Having heard the lawyer’s objections to the end, Leon- 
ard admitted their ingenuity, but acknowledged at tlie 
same time that they had produced no alteration in his im- 
pression on the subject of the letter or in his convictions 
as to the course of duty which he felt bound to follow. He 
would wait, he said, for Mrs. Jazeph’s testimony before he 
acted decisively ; but if that testimony were of such a nat- 
ure, and were given in such a manner, as to satisfy him 
that his wife had no moral right to the fortune that she 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


261 


possessed, he would restore it at once to the person who 
had — Mr. Andrew Treverton. 

Finding that no fresh arguments or suggestions could 
shake Mr. Frankland’s resolution, and that no separate 
appeal to Eosamond had the slightest effect in stimulating 
her to use her influence for the purpose of inducing her 
husband to alter his determination ; and feeling convinced, 
moreover, from all that he heard, that Mr. Frankland 
would, if he was opposed by many more objections, either 
employ another professional adviser or risk committing 
some fatal legal error by acting for himself in the matter 
of restoring the money, Mr. Nixon at last consented, under 

E rotest, to give his client what help he needed in case it 
ecame necessary to hold communication with Andrew 
Treverton. He listened with polite resignation to Leon- 
ard’s brief statement of the questions that he intended to 
put to Mrs. Jazeph ; and said, with the slightest possible 
dash of sarcasm, when it came to his turn to speak, that 
they were excellent questions in a moral point of view, and 
would doubtless' produce answers which would be full of 
interest of the most romantic kind. “But,” he added, 
“as you have one child already, Mr. Frankland, and as 
you may, perhaps, if I may venture on suggesting such a 
thing, have more in the course of years; and as those 
children, when they grow up, may hear of the loss of their 
mother’s fortune, and may wish to know why it was sacri- 
ficed, I should recommend— resting the matter on family 
grounds alone, and not going further to make a legal point 
of it also— that you procure from Mrs. Jazeph, besides the 
viva voce evidence you propose to extract (against the ad- 
missibility of which in this case I again protest), a written 
declaration, which you may leave behind j’^ou at your 
death, and which may justify you in the eyes of your 
children, in case the necessity for such a justification 
should arise at some future period.” 

This advice was too plainly valuable to be neglected. At 
Leonard’s request, Mr. Nixon drew out at once a form of 
declaration, affirming the genuineness of the letter ad- 
dressed by the late Mrs. Treverton on her deathbed to her 
husband, since also deceased, and bearing witness to the 
truth of the statements therein contained, both as regarded 
the fraud practiced on Captain Treverton and the asserted 
parentage of the child. Telling Mr. Frankland that he 
would do well to have Mrs. Jazeph’ s signature to this doc- 
ument attested by the names of two competent witnesses, 
Mr. Nixon handed the declaration to Eosamond to read 
aloud to her husband ; and, finding that no objection was 
made to any part of it, and that he could be of no further 
use in the present early stage of the proceedings, rose to 


262 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


take his leave. Leonard engaged to communicate with 
him again in the course of the day, if necessary ; and he 
retired, reiterating his protest to the last, and declaring 
that he had never met with such an extraordinary case 
and such a self-willed client before in the whole course of 
his practice. 

Nearly an hour elapsed after the departure of the law- 
yer before any second visitor was announced. At the ex- 
piration of that time the welcome sound of footsteps was 
heard approaching the door, and Uncle Joseph entered the 
room. 

Eosamond’s observation, stimulated by anxiety, detected 
a change in his look and manner the moment he appeared. 
His face was harassed and fatigued, and his gait as he ad- 
vanced into the room had lost the briskness and activity 
which so quaintly distinguished it when she saw him for 
the first time at Porthgenna Tower. He tried to add to 
his first words of greeting an apology for being late ; but 
Eosamond interrupted him in her eagerness to ask Jhe 
first important question. 

“ We know that you have discovered her address,” she 
said, anxiously; “ but we know nothing more. Is she as 
you feared to find her? Is she ill?” 

The old man shook his head sadly. ‘ ‘ When I showed 
you her letter,” he said, “ what did I tell you? She is so 
ill, madame, that not even the message your kindness gave 
to me will do her any good.” 

Those few simple words struck Eosamond’s heart with a 
strange fear which silenced her against her own will when 
she tried to speak [again. Uncle Joseph understood the 
anxious look she fixed on him and the quick sign she made 
toward the chair standing nearest to the sofa on which she 
and her husband were sitting. There he took his place, and 
there he confided to them all that he had to tell. 

He had followed, he said, the advice which Eosamond 
had given to him at Porthgenna ^ by taking a letter ad- 
dressed to ” S. J.” to the post-office the morning after his 
arrival in London. The messenger — a maid-servant — had 
called to inquire, as was anticipated, and had left the post- 
office with his letter in her hand. He had followed her to 
a lodging-house in a street near, had seen her let herself in 
at the door, and had then knocked and inquired for Mrs. 
Jazeph. The door was answered by an old woman, who 
looked like the landlady; and the reply was that no one of 
that name lived there. He had then explained that he 
wished to see the person for whom letters were sent to the 
neighboring post-ofiice, addressed to ‘‘S. J. ;” but the old 
woman had answered, in the surliest way, that they had 
nothing to do with anonymous people or their friends in 


THE DEAD SECRET 


263 


that house, aud had closed the door in his face. Upon this 
he had gone back to his friend, the German baker, to get 
advice ; and had been recommended to return, after allow- 
ing some little time to elapse, to ask if he could see the 
servant who waited on the lodgers, to describe his niece’s 
appearance, and to put half a crown into the girl’s hand to 
help her to understand what he wanted. He had followed 
these directions, and had discovered that his niece was 
lying ill in the house under the assumed name of “ Mrs. 
James.” A little persuasion (after the present of the half- 
crown) had induced the girl to go up-stairs and announce 
his name. After that there were no more obstacles to be 
overcome, and he he was conducted immediately to the 
room occupied by his niece. 

He was inexpressibly shocked and startled when he saw 
her by the violent nervous agitation which she manifested 
as he approached her bedside.* But he did not lose heart 
and hope until he had communicated Mrs. Frankland’s 
message and had found that it failed altogether in produc- 
ing the reassuring effect on her spirits which he had 
trusted and believed that it would exercise. Instead of 
soothing it seemed to excite and alarm her afresh. Among 
a host of minute inquiries about Mrs. Frankland’s looks, 
about her manner toward him, about the exact words she 
had spoken, all of which he was able to answer more or 
less to her satisfaction, she had addressed two questions 
to him to which he was utterly unable to reply. The first 
of the questions was : Whether Mrs. Frankland had said 
anything about the Secret? The second was: Whether 
she had spoken any chance word to lead to the suspicion 
that she had found out the situation of the Myrtle Room? 

The doctor in attendance had come in, the old man 
added, while he was still sitting by his niece’s bedside and 
still trying ineffectually to induce her to accept the friendly 
and reassuring language of Mrs. Frankland’s message. 
After making some inquiries and talking a little while on 
indifferent matters, the doctor had privately taken him 
aside; had informed him that the pain over the region of 
the heart and the difficulty in breathing, which were the 
symptoms of which his niece complained, were more seri- 
ous in their nature than persons uninstructed in medical 
matters might be disposed to think; and had begged him 
to give her no more messages from any one, unless he felt 
perfectly sure beforehand that they would have the effect 
of clearing her mind, at once and forever, from the secret 
anxieties that now harassed it — anxieties which, he might 
rest assured, were aggravating her malady day by day, 
and rendering all the medical help that could be given of 
little or no avail. 


264 


THE DEAD SEOBET. 


Upon this, after sitting longer with his niece and after 
holding counsel with himself, he had resolved to write pri- 
vately to Mrs. Frankland that evening after getting back 
to his friend’s house. The letter had taken him longer to 
compose than any one accustomed to writing would be 
lieve. At last, after delays in making a fair copy from 
many rough drafts, and delays in leaving his task to at- 
tend to his niece, he had completed a letter narrating what 
had happened since his arrival in London, in language 
which he hoped might be understood. Judging by com- 
parison of dates this letter must have crossed Mr. and Mrs. 
Frankland on the road. It contained nothing more than 
he had just been relating with his own lips — except that it 
also communicated, as a proof that distance had not di- 
minished the fear which tormented his niece’s mind, the 
explanation she had given to him of her concealment of her 
name and of her choice of an abode among strangers when 
she had friends in London to whom she might have gone. 
That explanation it was, perhaps, needless to have length- 
ened the letter by repeating, for it only involved his saying 
over again in substance what he had already said in speak- 
ing of the motive which had forced Sarah to part from 
him at Truro. 

With last words such as those the sad and simple story 
of the old man came to an end. After waiting a little to 
recover her self-possession and to steady her voice, Rosa- 
mond touched her husband to draw his attention to her- 
self, and whispered to him : 

“I may say all, now, that I wished to say at Porth- 
genna?” 

“ All,” he answered. “If you can trust yourself, Rosa- 
mond, it is fittiest that he should hear it from your lips.” 

After the first natural burst of astonishment was over 
the effect of the disclosure of the secret on Uncle Joseph 
exhibited the most striking contrast that can be imagined 
to the effect of it on Mr. Nixon. No shadow of doubt dark- 
ened the old man's face, not a word of objection dropped 
from his lips. The one emotion excited in him was simple, 
unreflecting, unalloyed delight. He sprung to his feet 
with all his natural activity, his eyes sparkled again with 
all their natural brightness ; one moment he clapped his 
hands like a child ; the next he caught up his hat and en- 
treated Rosamond to let him lead her at once to his niece’s 
bedside. “If you will only tell Sarah what you have just 
told me,” he cried, hurrying across the room to open the 
door, “you will give her back her courage, you will raise 
her up from her bed, you will cure her before the day is 
out!” 

A warning word fi'om Mr. Frankland stopped him on 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


265 


a sudden and brought him back, silent and attentive, to 
the chair that he had left the moment before. 

“Think a little of what the doctor told you,” said Leon- 
ard. “The sudden surprise which has made you so happy 
might do fatal mischief to your niece. Before we take the 
responsibility of speaking to her on a subject which is sure 
to agitate her violently, however careful we may be in in- 
troducing it, we ought first, I think, for safety’s sake, to 
apply to the doctor for advice.” 

Rosamond warmly seconded her husband’s suggestion, 
and, with her characteristic impatience of delay, proposed 
that they should find out the medical man immediately. 
Uncle Joseph announced — a little unwillingly, as it seemed 
— in answer to her inquiries, that he knew the place of the 
doctor’s residence, and that he was generally to be found at 
home before one o’clock in the afternoon. It was then just 
half-past twelve; and Rosamond, with her husband’s ap- 
proval, rang the bell at once to send for a cab. 

She was about to leave the room to put on her bonnet, 
after giving the necessary order, when the old man stopped 
her by asking, with some appearance of hesitation and con- 
fusion, if it was considered necessary that he should go to 
the doctor with Mr. and Mrs. Frankland ; adding, before 
the question could be answered, that he would greatly pre- 
fer, if there was no objection to it on their parts, being left 
to wait at the hotel to receive any instructions they might 
wish to give him on their return. Leonard immediately 
complied with his request, without inquiring into his rea- 
sons for making it; but Rosamond’s curiosity was aroused, 
and she asked why he preferred remaining by himself at 
the hotel to going with them to the doctor. 

“ I like him not,” said the old man. “ When he speaks 
about Sarah, he looks and talks as if he thought she would 
never get up from her bed again.” Answering in those 
brief words, he Avalked away uneasily to the window, as if 
he desired to say no more. 

The residence of the doctor was at some little distance, 
but Mr. and Mrs. Frankland arrived there before one 
o’clock, and found him at home. He was a young man, 
with a mild., grave face, and a quiet, subdued manner. 
Daily contact with suffering and sorrow had perhaps pre- 
maturely steadied and saddened his character. Merely 
introducing her husband and herself to him, as persons 
who were deeply interested in his patient at the lodging- 
house, Rosamond left it to Leonard to ask the first questions 
relating to the condition of her mother’s health. 

The doctor’s answer was ominously prefaced by a few 
polite words, which were evidently intended to prepare his 
hearers for a less hopeful report than they might have come 


266 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


there expecting to receive. Carefully divesting the subject 
of all professional technicalities, he told them that his 
patient was undoubtedly affected with serious disease of 
the heart. The exact nature of this disease he candidly 
acknowledged to be a matter of doubt, which various medical 
men might decide in various ways. According to the 
opinion which he had himself formed from the symptoms, 
he believed that the patient’s malady was connected with 
the artery which conveys blood directly from the heart 
through the system. 

Having found her singularly unwilling to answer ques- 
tions relating to the nature of her past life he could only 
guess that the disease was of long standing ; that it was 
originally produced by some great mental shock, followed 
by long-wearing anxiety (of which her face showed palpa- 
ble traces) ; and that it had been seriously aggravated by 
the fatigue of a journey to London, which she acknowl- 
edged she had undertaken at a time when great nervous 
exhaustion rendered her totally unfit to travel. Speaking 
according to this view of the case, it was his painful duty 
to tell her friends that any violent emotion would un- 
questionably put her life in danger. At the same time, if 
the mental uneasiness from which she was now suffering 
could be removed, and if she could be placed in a quiet, 
comfortable country home, among people who would be 
unremittingly careful in keeping her composed, and in suf- 
fering her to want for nothing, there was reason to hope 
that the progress of the disease might be arrested, and that 
her life might be spared for some years to come. 

Rosamond’s heart bounded at the picture of the future 
which her fancy drew from the suggestions that lay hidden 
in the doctor’s last words. “She can command every 
advantage you have mentioned^, and more, if more is re- 
quired!” she interposed, eagerly, before her husband could 
speak again. ‘ ‘ Oh, sir, if rest among kind friends is all 
that her poor weary heart wants, thank God we can give 
it.” 

“We can give it,” said Leonard, continuing the sen- 
tence for his wife, “ if the doctor will sanction our making 
a communication to his patient, which is of a nature to 
relieve her of all anxiety, but which, it is necessary to add, 
she is at present quite unprepared to receive.” 

“ May I ask,” said the doctor, “ who is to be intrusted 
with the responsibility of making the communication you 
mention?” 

“ There are two persons who could be intrusted with it,” 
answered Leonard. “ One is the old man whom you have 
seen by your patient’s bedside. The other is my wife.” 

“In that case,” rejoined the doctor, looking at Rosa- 


THE DEAD SECRET 


267 


mond, “ there can be no doubt that this lady is the fittest 
person to undertake the duty. * ’ He paused and refiected 
for a moment; then added: “ May I inquire, however, be- 
fore I venture on guiding your decision one way or the 
other, whether the lady is as familiarly known to my pa- 
tient, and is on the same intimate terms with her, as the 
old man?” 

“ I am afraid I must answer No to both those questions,” 
replied Leonard. “ And I ought, perhaps, to tell you, at 
the same time, that your patient believes my wife to be 
now in Cornwall. Her first appearance in the sick-room 
would, I fear, cause great surprise to the sufferer, and 
possibly some little alarm as w^ell. 

‘‘Under those circumstances,” said the doctor, “the 
risk of trusting the old man, simple as he is, seems to be 
infinitely the least risk of the two— for the plain reason 
that his presence can cause her no surprise. How^ever un- 
skillfully he may break the news, he will have the great 
advantage over this lady of not appearing unexpectedly at 
the bedside. If the hazardous experiment must be tried — 
and I assume that it must, from what you have said — you 
have no choice, I think, but to trust it, with proper cau- 
tions and instructions, to the old man to carry out.” 

After arriving at that conclusion, there was no more to 
he said on either side. The interview terminated, and 
Eosamond and her husband hastened back to give Uncle 
Joseph his instructions at the hotel. 

As they approached the door of their sitting-room they 
were surprised by hearing the sound of music inside. On 
entering, they found the old man crouched upon a stool, 
listening to a shabby little musical box which was placed 
on a table close by him, and which was playing an air 
that Eosamond recognized immediately as the ‘ ‘ Batti, 
Batti ” o£ Mozart. 

“ I hope you will pardon me for making music to keep 
myself company while you were away,” said Uncle 
Joseph, starting up in some little confusion, and touching 
the stop of the box. “This is, if you please, of all my 
friends and companions, the oldest that is left. The divine 
Mozart, the king of all the composers that ever lived, gave 
it with his own hand, madame, to my brother, when Max 
was a boy in the music school at Vienna. Since my niece 
left me in Cornwall, I have not had the heart to make 
Mozart sing to me out of this little bit of box until to-day. 
Now that you have made me happy about Sarah again, 
my ears ache once more for the tiny ting- ting that has 
always the same friendly sound to my heart, travel where 
I may. But enough so!” said the old man, placing the 
box in the leather case by his side, which Eosamond had 


268 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


noticed there when she first saw him at Porthgenna. “ I 
shall put back my singing-bird into his cage, and shall 
ask, when that is done, if you will be pleased to tell me 
what it is that the doctor has said?” 

Eosamond answered his request by relating the sub- 
stance of the conversation which had passed between her 
husband and the doctor. She then, with many prepara- 
tory cautions, proceeded to instruct the old man how to 
disclose the discovery of the Secret to his niece. She told 
him that the circumstances in connection with it must be 
first stated, not as events that had really happened, but as 
events that might be supposed to have happened. She put 
the words that he would have to speak into his mouth, 
choosing the fewest and the plainest that would answer 
the purpose ; she showed him how he might glide almost 
imperceptibly from referring to the discovery as a thing 
that might be supposed, to referring to it as a thing that 
had really happened; and she impressed upon him, as most 
important of all, to keep perpetually before his niece’s 
mind, the fact that the discovery of the Secret had not 
awakened one bitter feeling or one resentful thought 
toward her, in the midst of either of the persons who had 
been so deeply interested in finding it out. 

Uncle Jose])h listened with unwavering attention until 
Eosamond had done; then rose from his seat, fixed his eyes 
intently on her face, and detected an expression of anxiety 
and doubt in it which he rightly interpreted as referring to 
himself. 

“ May I make you sure, before I go away, that I shall 
forget nothing?” he asked, very earnestly." “I have no 
head to invent, it is true; but I have something in me that 
can remember, and the more especially when it is for 
Sarah’s sake. If you please, listen now, and hear if I can 
say to you over again all that you have said to me.” 

Standing before Eosamond, with something in his look 
and manner strangely and touchingly suggestive of the 
long-past days of his childhood, and of the time when he 
had said his earliest lessons at his mother’s knee, he now 
repeated, from first to last, the instructions that had been 
given to him, with a verbal exactness, with an easy readi- 
ness of memory, which, in a man of his age, was 
less than astonishing. “ Have I kept it all as I 
he asked, simply, when he had come to an end. “And 
may I go my ways now, and take my good news to Sarah’s 
bedside?” 

It was still necessary to detain him, while Eosamond and 
her husband consulted together on the best and safest 
means of following up the avowal that the secret was dis- 


not hing 
should?” 


THE DEAD EECRET. ^<10 

covered by the announcement of their own ^^^•ence in 
London. 

After some consideration, Leonard asked hiw wife to pro- 
duce the document which the lawyer had drawn out that 
morning, and to write a few lines from his dictation, on the 
blank side of the paper, requesting Mrs. Jazeph to read the 
form of declaration, and to affix her signature to it, if she 
felt that it required her, in every particular, to affirm noth- 
ing that was not the exact truth. When this had been 
done, and when the leaf on which Mrs. Frankland had 
written had been folded outward, so that it might be the 
first page to catch the eye, Leonard directed that the paper 
should be given to the old man, and explained to him what 
he was to do with it, in these words: 

“ When you have broken the news about the Secret to 
your niece,” he said, “and when you have allowed her 
full time to compose herself, if she asks questions about my 
wife and myself (as I believe she will) hand that paper to 
her for answer, and beg her to read it. Whether she is 
willing to sign it or not, she is sure to inquire how you 
came by it. Tell her in return that you have received it 
from Mrs. Frankland — using the word ‘ received, ’ so that 
she may believe at first that it was sent to you from 
Forthgenna by post. If you find that she signs the decla- 
ration, and that she is not much agitated after doing so, 
then tell her in the same gradual way in which you tell 
the truth about the discovery of the Secret, that my wife 
gave the paper to you with her own hands, and that she is 
now in London ” 

“Waiting and longing to see her,” added Eosamond. 
“You, who forget nothing, will not, lam sure, forget to 
say that.” 

The littte compliment to his powers of memory made 
Uncle Joseph color with pleasure, as if he were a boy again. 
Promising to prove worthy of the trust reposed in him, 
and engaging to come back and relieve Mrs. Frankland of 
all suspense before the day was out, he took his leave, and 
went forth hopefully on his momentous errand. 

Eosamond watched him from the window, threading his 
way in and out among the throng of passengers on the 
pavement, until he was lost to view. How nimbly the 
light little figure sped away out of sight ! How gayly the 
unclouded sunlight poured down on the cheerful bustle in 
the street I The whole being of the great city basked in 
the summer glory of the day ; all its mighty pulses beat 
high, and all its myriad voices whispered of hope I 


2^0 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


CHAPTER HI. 

THE STORY OF THE PAST. 

The afternoon wore away and the evening came, and 
still there were no signs of Uncle Joseph’s return. 

Toward seven o’clock, Rosamond was summoned by the 
nurse, who reported that the child was awake and fretful. 
After soothing and quieting him, she took him back with 
her to the sitting-room, having first, with her usual con- 
sideration for the comfort of any servant whom she em- 
ployed, sent the nurse down-stairs, with a leisure hour at 
her own disposal, after the duties of the day. “ I don’t 
like to be away from you, Lenny, at this anxious time,” 
she said, when she rejoined her husband; ‘‘so I have 
brought the child in here. He is not likely to be trouble- 
some again, and the having him to take care of is really a 
relief to me in our present state of suspense.” 

The clock on the mantel piece chimed the half hour past 
seven. The carriages in the street were following one 
another more and more rapidly, filled with people in full 
dress, on their way to dinner, or on their way to the opera. 
The hawkers were shouting proclamations of news in the 
neighboring square, with the second editions of the evening 
papers under their arms. People who had been serving 
behind the counter all day were standing at the shop door 
to get a breath of fresh air. Working-men were trooping 
homeward, now singly, now together, in weary, shambling 
gangs. Idlers, who had come out after dinner, were light- 
ing cigars at corners of streets, and looking about them, 
uncertain which way they should turn their steps next. It 
was just that transitional period of the evening at which 
the street-life of the day is almost over, and the street-life 
of the night has not quite begun— -just the time, also, at 
which Rosamond, after vainly trying to find relief from 
the weariness of waiting by looking out of window, was 
becoming more and more deeply absorbed in her own 
anxious thoughts — when her attention was abruptly re- 
called to events in the little world about her by the opening 
of the room door. She looked up immediately from the 
child lying asleep on her lap, and saw that Uncle Joseph 
had returned at last. 

The old man came in silently, with the form of declara- 
tion which he had taken away with him, by Mr. Frank- 
land’s desire, open in his hand. As he approached nearer 
to the window, Rosamond noticed that his face looked as if 
it had grown strangely older during the few hours of his 
absence. He came close up to her, and still not saying a 
word, laid his trembling forefinger low down on the open 


THE DEAD SECRET, mi 

paper, and held it before her so that she could look’ at the 
place thus indicated without rising from her chair. 

His silence and the change in bis face struck her with a 
sudden dread which made her hesitate before she spoke to 
him. “Have you told her all?” she asked, after a mo- 
ment’s delay, putting the question in low, whispering tones, 
and not heeding the paper. 

“This answers that I have,” he said, still pointing to the 
declaration. “See! here is the name signed in the place 
that was left for it— signed by her own hand.” 

Rosamond glanced at the paper. There indeed was the 
signature, “ S. Jazeph;” and underneath it were added, in 
faintly traced lines of parentheses, these explanatory words 
— ‘ ‘ Formerly Sarah Leeson. ’ ’ 

“Why don’t you speak?” exclaimed Rosamond, looking 
at him in growing alarm. “ Why don’t you tell us how 
she bore it?” 

“Ah! don’t ask me, don’t ask me!” he answered, 
shrinking back from her hand, as she tried in her eager- 
ness to lay it on his arm. “ I forgot nothing. I said the 
words as "you taught me to say them — I went the round- 
about way to the truth with my tongue ; but my face took 
the short cut, and got to the end first. Pray, of your 
goodness to me, ask nothing about it ! Be satisfied, if you 
please, with knowing that she is better and quieter and 
happier now. The bad is over and past, and the good is 
all to come. If I tell you how she Looked, if I tell you 
what she said, if I tell you all that happened when first she 
knew the truth, the fright will catch me round the heart 
again, and all the sobbing and crying that I have swallowed 
down will rise once more and choke me. I must keep my 
head clear and my eyes dry— or how shall I say to you all 
the things that I have promised Sarah, as I love my own 
soul and hers, to tell, before I lay myself down to rest to- 
night?” He stopped, took out a coarse little cotton pocket- 
handkerchief, with a fiaring white pattern on a dull blue 
ground, and dried a few tears that had risen in his eyes 
while he was speaking. “ My life has had so much happi- 
ness in it,” he said, self-reproachfully, looking at Rosa- 
mond, “that my courage, when it is wanted for the time 
of trouble, is not easy to find. And yet, I am a German ! ail 
my nation are philosophers ! — why is it that I alone am as 
soft in my brains, and as weak in my heart, as the pretty 
little baby there, that is lying asleep in your lap?” 

“ Don’t speak again; don’t tell us anything till you feel 
more composed,” said Rosamond. “We are relieved from 
our worst suspense now that we know you have left her 
quieter and better. I will ask no more questions; at least,” 
ghe added, after a pause, “I will only ask one.” She 


m 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


stopped; and her eyes wandered inquiringly toward Leon ^ 
ard. He had hitherto been listening with silent interest 
to all that had passed; but he now interposed gently, and 
advised his wife to wait a little before she ventured on say- 
ing anything more. 

“It is such an easy question to answer,” pleaded Eosa- 
mond. “I only wanted to hear whether she has got my 
message — whether she knows that I am waiting and long' 
ing to see her, if she will but let me come?” 

“Yes, yes,” said the old man, nodding to Eosamond with 
an air of relief. “ That question is easy; easier even than 
you think, for it brings me straight to the beginning of all 
that I have got to say.” 

He had been hitherto walking restlessly about the room ; 
sitting down one moment, and getting up the next. He 
now placed a chair for himself midway between Eosamond 
— who was sitting, with the child, near the window — and 
her husband, who occupied the sofa at the lower end of the 
room. In this position, which enabled him to address him- 
self alternately to Mr. and Mrs. Frankland without diffi- 
culty, he soon recovered composure enough to open his 
heart unreservedly to the interest of his subject. 

“ When the worst was over and past,” he said, address- 
ing Eosamond — “ when she could listen and when I could 
speak, the first words of comfort that I said to her were the 
words of your message. Straight she looked at me, with 
doubting, fearing eyes. ‘ Was her husband there to hear 
her!’ she says. ‘Did he look angry? did he look sorry? 
did he change ever so little when you got that message from 
her?’ And I said, ‘No; no change, no anger, no sorrow 
— nothing like it.’ And she said again: ‘ Has it made be- 
tween them no misery? has it nothing wrenched away of 
all the love and all the happiness that binds them the one 
to the other?’ And once more I answer to that: ‘No! no 
misery, no wrench. See now ! I shall go my ways at once 
to the" good wife, and fetch her here to answer for the good 
husband with her own tongue. ’ While I speak those words 
there flies out over all her face a look — no, not a look — a 
light, like a sun-flash. While I can count one, it lasts; 
before I can count two, it is gone; the face is all dark 
again; it is turned away from me on the pillow, and I see 
the hand that is outside the bed begin to crumple up the 
sheet. ‘ I shall go my ways,* then, and fetch the good wife,’ 
I say again. And she says, ‘ No, not yet. I must not see 

her, I dare not see her till she knows ” and there she 

stops, and the hand crumples up the sheet again, and 
softly, softly, I say to her: ‘Knows what?’ and she an- 
swers me : ‘ What I, her mother, cannot teU her to her 
face, for shame.’ And I say: ‘So, so, my child! tell it not, 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


273 

then— tell it not at all.’ She shakes her head at me, and 
wrings her two hands together, like this on the bed -cover. 
‘ I must tell it,’ she says. ‘ I must rid rny heart of all that 
has been gnawing, gnawing, gnawing at it, or how shall I 
feel the blessing that the seeing her would bring to me, if 
my conscience is only clear?’ Then she stops a little, and 
lifts up her two hands, so, and cries out loud: ‘Oh, will 
God’s mercy show me no way of telling it that will spare 
me before my child !’ And I say : ‘ Hush, then ! there is 
a way. Tell it to Uncle Joseph, who is the same as father 
to you! Tell it to Uncle Joseph, whose little son died in 
your arms; whose tears your hand wiped away, in the 
grief time long ago. Tell it, my child, to me ; and I shall 
take the risk, and the shame (if there is shame), of telling 
it again. I, with nothing to speak for me but my white 
hair; I, with nothing to help me but my heart that means 
no harm — I shall go to that good and true woman, with 
the burden of her mother’s grief to lay before her; and, 
in my soul of souls I believe it, she will not turn away!’ ” 

He paused, and looked at Rosamond. Her head was 
bent down over her child ; her tears were dropping slowly, 
one by one, on the bosom of his little white dress. Wait- 
ing a moment to collect herself before she spoke, she held 
out her hand to the old man, and firmly and gratefully 
met the look he fixed on her. “Oh, go on, goon!” she 
said. “Let me prove to you that your generous confi- 
dence in me is not misplaced.” 

“ I knew it was not, from the first, as surely as I know 
it now!” said Uncle Joseph. “And Sarah, when I had 
spoken to her, she knew it too. She was silent for a little ; 
she cried for a little ; she leaned over from the pillow and 
kissed me here, on my cheek, as I sat by the bedside ; and 
then she looked back, back, back, in her mind, to the Long 
Ago, and very quietly, very slowly, with her eyes looking 
into my eyes, and her hand resting so in mine, she spoke 
the words to me that I must now speak again to you, who 
sit here to-day as her judge, before you go to her to-mor- 
row as her child. ’ ’ 

“ Not as her judge !” said Rosamond. “I cannot, I must 
not hear you say that.” 

“I speak her words, not mine,” rejoined the old man, 
gravely. “Wait before you bid me change them for 
others — wait till you know the end.” 

He drew his chair a little nearer to Rosamond, paused 
for a minute or two to arrange his recollections, and to 
separate them one from the other; then resumed. 

“As Sarah began with me,” he said, “ so I, for my part, 
must begin also — which means to say, that I go down now 
through the years that are past, to the time when my niece 


274 


THE DEAD SECRET 


went out to her first service. You know that the sea-cap- 
tain, the brave and good man Treverton, took for his wife 
an artist on the stage — what they call play- actress here? A 
grand, big woman, and handsome ; with a life, and a spirit, 
and a will in her that is not often seen ; a woman of the 
sort who can say. We will do this thing, or that thing— and 
do it in the spite and face of all the scruples, all the ob- 
stacles, all the oppositions in the world. To this lady there 
comes for maid to wait upon her, Sarah, my niece — a young 
girl then, pretty, and kind, and gentle, and very, very shy. 
Out of many others who want the place, and who are 
bolder and bigger and quicker girls. Mistress Treverton, 
nevertheless, picks Sarah. This is strange, but it is 
stranger yet that Sarah, on her part, when she comes out 
of her first fears, and doubts, and pains of shyness about 
herself, gets to be fond with all her heart of that grand and 
handsome mistress, who has a life, and a spirit, and a will 
of the sort that is not often seen. This is strange to say, 
but it is also, as I know from Sarah’s own lips, every word 
of it true.’' 

“ True beyond a doubt,” said Leonard. “Most strong 
attachments are formed between people who are unlike 
each other.” 

“ So the life they led in that ancient house of Porthgenna 
began happily for them all,” continued the old man. 
‘‘ The love that the mistress had for her husband was so 
full in her heart that it overflowed in kindness to every- 
body who was about her, and to Sarah, her maid, before 
all the rest. She would have nobody but Sarah to read to 
her, to work for her, to dress her in the morning and the 
evening, and to undress her at night. She was as familiar 
as a sister might have been with Sarah, when they two 
were alone, in the long days of rain. It was the game of 
her idle time— the laugh that she liked most — to astonish 
the poor country maid, who had never so much as seen 
what a theater’s inside was like, by dressing in fine 
clothes, and painting her face, and speaking and doing all 
that she had done on the theater -scene in the days that 
were before her marriage. The more she puzzled Sarah 
with these jokes and pranks of masquerade, the better she 
was always pleased. For a year this easy, happy life 
went on in the ancient house— happy for all the servants 
— happier still for the master and mistress, but for the 
want of one thing to make the whole complete, one little 
blessing that was always hoped for, and that never came 
— the same, if you please, as the blessing in the long white 
frock, with the plump, delicate face and the tiny ^rms 
that I see before me now. ’ ’ 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


275 


He paused to point the allusion by nodding and smiling 
at the child in Eosamond’s lap, then resumed. 

“ As the new year gets on,” he said, “Sarah sees in the 
mistress a change. The good sea-captain is a man who 
loves children, and is fond of getting to the house all the 
little boys and girls of his friends round about. He plays 
with them, he kisses them, he makes them presents — he 
is the best friend the little boys and girls have ever had. 
The mistress, who should be their best friend too, looks 
on and says nothing — looks on, red sometimes, and some- 
times pale ; goes away into her room where Sarah is at 
work for her, and walks about and finds fault ; and one day 
lets the evil temper fly out of her at her tongue, and says, 
‘Why have I got no child for my husband to be fond of? 
Why must he kiss and play always with the children of 
other women? They take his love away for something 
that is not mine. I hate those children and their mothers 
too!’ It is her passion that speaks then, but it speaks 
what is near the truth for all that. She will not make 
friends with any of those mothers; the ladies she is fa- 
miliar-fond with are the ladies who have no children, or 
the ladies whose families are all upgrown. You think that 
was wrong of the mistress?” 

He puts the question to Eosamond, who was toying 
thoughtfully with one of the baby’s hands which was rest- 
ing in hers. “I think Mrs. Treverton was very much to 
be pitied,” she answered, gently lifting the child’s hand to 
her lips. 

“ Then I, for my part, think so too,” said Uncle Joseph. 
“To be pitied? — yes! To be more pitied some months 
after, when there is still no child and no hope of a child, 
and the good sea-captain says, one day, ‘ I rust here; I get 
old with much idleness ; I want to be on the sea again. I 
shall ask for a ship. ’ And he asks for a ship, and they 
give it him ; and he goes away on his cruises — with much 
kissing and fondness at parting from his wife— but still he 
goes away. And when he is gone, the mistress comes in 
again where Sarah is at work for her on a fine new gown, 
and snatches it away, and casts it down on the floor, and 
throws after it all the fine jewels she has got on her table, 
and stamps and cries with the misery and the passion that 
is in her. ‘ I would give all those fine things, and go in 
rags for the rest of my life, to have a child !’ she says. ‘ I 
am losing my husband’s love: he would never have gone 
away from me if I had brought him a child !’ Then she 
looks in the glass, and says between her teeth, ‘ Yes ! yes ! 
I am a fine woman, with a fine figure, and I would change 
places with the ugliest, crookedest wretch in all creation, 
if I could only have a child 1’ And then she tells Sarah 


276 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


that the captain’s brother spoke the vilest of all vile words 
of her, when she was married, because she was an artist on 
the stage; and she says, ‘ If I have no child, who but he— 
the rascal-monster that I wish I could kill ! — who but he 
will come to possess all that the captain has got ?’ And 
then she cries again, and says, ‘ I am losing his love— ah, I 
know it, I know it ! — I am losing his love !’ Nothing that 
Sarah can say will alter her thoughts about that. And the 
months go on, and the sea-captain comes back, and still 
there is always the same secret grief growing and growing 
in the mistress’ heart — growing and growing, till it is now 
the third year since the marriage, and there is no hope yet 
of a child ; and once more the sea-captain gets tired on the 
land, and goes off again for his cruises— long cruises, this 
time; away, away, away, at the other end of the world.” 

Here Uncle Joseph paused once more, apparently hesi- 
tating a little about how he should go on with the narrative. 
His mind seemed to be soon relieved of its doubts, but his 
face saddened, and his tones sunk lower, when he addressed 
Kosamond again. 

“ I must, if you please, go away from the mistress now, ” 
he said, “and get back to Sarah, my niece, and say one 
word also of a mining man, with the Cornish name of Pol- 
wheal. This was a young man that worked well and got 
good wage, and kept a good character. He lived with his 
mother, in the little village that is near the ancient house ; 
and, seeing Sarah from time to time, took much fancy to 
her, and she to him. So the end came that the marriage- 
promise was between them given and taken; as it hap- 
pened, about the time when the sea-captain was back after 
his first cruises, and just when he was thinking of going 
away in a ship again. Against the marriage-promise nor 
he nor the lady his wife had a word to object, for the 
miner, Polwheal, had good wage and kept a good char- 
acter. Only the mistress said that the loss of Sarah would 
be sad to her — very sad ; and Sarah answered that there 
was yet no hurry to part. So the weeks go on, and the 
sea-captain sails away again for his long cruises; and about 
the same time also the mistress finds out that Sarah frets, 
and looks not like herself, and that the miner, Polwheal, 
he lurks here and lurks there, round about the house ; and 
she says to herself, ‘ So ! so ! Am I standing too much in 
the way of this marriage? For Sarah’s sake, that shall 
not be!’ And she calls for them both one evening, and 
talks to them kindly, and sends away to put up the bans 
next morning the young man Polwheal. That night, it is his 
turn to go down into the Porthgenna mine, and work after 
the hours of the day. With his heart all light, down into 
that dark he goes. When he rises to the world again it is 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


277 


the dead body of him that is drawn up — the dead body, 
with all the young life, by the fall of a rock, crushed out 
in a moment. The news flies here, the news flies there. 
With no break, with no warning, with no comfort near, it 
comes on a sudden to 8arah, my niece. When to her 
sweetheart that evening she had said good-bye, she was a 
young, pretty girl ; when, six little weeks after, she, from 
the sick-bed where the shock threw her, got up, all her 
youth was gone, all her hair was gray, and in her eyes the 
fright-look was fixed that has never left them since. ’ ’ 

The simple words drew the picture of the miner’s death, 
and of all that followed it, with a startling distinctness — 
with a fearful reality. Rosamond shuddered, and looked 
at her husband. “ Oh, Lenny!” she murmured, “the first 
news of your blindness was a sore trial to me— but what 
was it to this?” 

“ Pity her!” said the old man. “Pity her for what she 
suffered then! Pity her for what came after, that was 
worse ! Yet five, six, seven weeks pass, after the death of 
the mining man, and Sarah in the body suffers less, but in 
the mind suffers more. The mistress, who is kind and good 
to her as any sister could be, finds out, little by little, 
something in her face which is not the pain- look, nor the 
fright-look, nor the grief- look; something which the eyes 
can see, but which the tongue cannot put into words. She 
looks and thinks, looks and thinks, till there steals into her 
mind a doubt which makes her tremble at herself, which 
drives her straight forward into Sarah’s room, which sets 
her eyes searching through ^nd through Sarah to her inmost 
heart. ‘ There is something on your mind besides your 
grief for the dead and gone, ’ she says, and catches Sarah 
by both the arms before she can turn away, and looks her 
in the face, front to front, with curious eyes that search 
and suspect steadily. ‘The miner man, Pol wheal,’ she 
says; ‘my mind misgives me about the miner man, Pol- 
wheal. Sarah ! I have been more friend to you than mis- 
tress. As your friend I ask you now — tell me all the truth?’ 

“ The question waits ; but no word of answer ! only Sarah 
struggles to get away, and the mistress holds her tighter 
yet, and goes on and says, ‘I know that the marriage- 
promise passed between you and miner Pol wheal; I know 
that if ever there was truth in man, there was truth in him ; 
I know that he went out from this place to put the bans 
up, for you and for him, in the church. Have secrets from 
all the world besides, Sarah, but have none from me. Tell 
me, this minute— tell me the truth! Of all the lost creat- 
ures in this big, wide world, are you ?’ Before she can 

say the words that are next to come, Sarah falls on her 
knees, and cries out suddenly td be let go away to hide and 


278 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


die, and to be heard of no more. That was all the answer 
she gave. It was enough for the truth then ; it is enough 
for the truth now.” 

He sighed bitterly, and ceased speaking for a little while. 
No voice broke the reverent silence that followed his last 
words. The one living sound that stirred in the stillness 
of the room was the light breathing of the child as he lay 
asleep in his mother’s arms. 

” That was all the answer,” repeated the old man, “ and 
the mistress who heard it says nothing for some time after, 
but still looks straight forward into Sarah’s face, and grows 
paler and paler the longer she looks— paler and paler till 
on a sudden she starts, and at one flash the red flies back 
into her face. ‘No,’ she savs, whispering and looking at 
the door, ‘ once your friend, Sarah, always your friend. 
Stay in this house, keep your own counsel, do as I bid you, 
and leave the rest to me.’ And with that she turns round 
quick on her heel, and falls to walking up and down the 
room— faster, faster, faster, till she is out of breath. Then 
she pulls the bell with an angry jerk, and calls out loud at 
the door— ‘The horses! I want to ride;’ then turns upon 
Sarah— ‘ My gown for riding in ! Pluck up your heart, 
poor creature ! On my life and honor, I will save you. My 
gown, my gown, then ; I am mad for a gallop in the open 
air 1’ And she goes out, in a fever of the blood, and gal- 
lops, gallops, till the horse reeks again, and the groom man 
who rides after her wonders if she is mad. When she 
comes back, for all that ride in the air, she is not tired. 
The whole evening after, she is now walking about the 
room, and now striking loud tflnes all mixed up together 
on the piano. At the bedtime, she cannot rest. Twice, 
three times in the night she frightens Sarah by coming in to 
see how she does, and by saying always those same words 
over again: ‘ Keep your own counsel, do as I bid you, and 
leave the rest to me. ’ In the morning she lies late, sleeps, 
gets up very pale and quiet, and says to Sarah, ‘ No word 
more between us two of what happened yesterday — no 
word till the time comes when you fear the eyes of every 
stranger who looks at you. Then I shall speak again. Till 
that time let us be as we were before I put the question 
yesterday, and before you told the truth!” 

At this poiiitjie broke the thread of the narrative again, 
explaining as he did so that his memory was growing con- 
fused about a question of time, which he wished to state 
correctly in introducing the series of events that were next 
to be described. 

“ Ah, well! well!” he said, shaking his head, after vainly 
endeavoring to pursue the lost recollection. ” For once, I 
must acknowledge that I forget. Whether it was two 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


279 


roonths, or whether it was three, after the mistress said 
those last words to Sarah, I know not — but at the end of 
the one time or of the other she one morning orders her 
carriage and goes away alone to Truro. In the evening she 
comes back with two large flat baskets. On the cover of 
the one there is a card, and written on it are the letters ‘ S. 
L.’ On the cover of the other there is a card, and written 
on it are the letters ‘ R. T.’ The baskets are taken into 
the mistress’ room, and Sarah is called, and the mistress 
says to her, ‘ Open the basket with S. L. on it ; for those 
are the letters of your name, and the things in it are 
yours.’ Inside there is flrst a box, which holds a grand 
bonnet of black lace; then a fine dark shawl; then black 
silk of the best kind, enough to make a gown ; then linen 
and stuff for the undergarments, all of the finest sort. 

‘ Make up those things to fit yourself,’ says the mistress. 

‘ You are so much littler than I, that to make the things 
up new is less trouble than, from my fit to yours, to alter 
old gowns.’ Sarah, to all this, says in astonishment, 

‘ Why?’ And the mistress answers, ‘ I will have no ques- 
tions. Remember what I said — Keep your own counsel, 
and leave the rest to me!’ So she goes out; and the next 
thing she does is to send for the doctor to see her. He asks 
what is the matter ; gets for answer that Mistress Treverton 
feels strangely, and not like herself; also that she thinks 
the soft air of Cornwall makes her weak. The days pass, 
and the doctor comes and goes, and, say what he may, 
those two answers are always the only two that he can get. 
All this time Sarah is at work; and when she has done, 
the mistress says, ‘ Now for the other basket, with R. T. 
on it ; for those are the letters of my name, and the things 
in it are mine. ’ 

“Inside this, there is first a box which holds a common 
bonnet of black straw; then a coarse, dark shawl; then a 
gown of good common black stuff; then linen, and other 
things for the undergarments, that are only of the sort 
called second best. ‘ Make up all that rubbish, ’ says the 
mistress, ‘ to fit me. No questions I You have always done 
as I told you; do as I tell you now, or you are a lost 
woman.’ When the rubbish is made up, she tries it on, 
and looks in the glass, and laughs in a way that is wild and 
desperate to hear. ‘Do I make a fine, buxom, comely 
servant- woman?’ she says. ‘Ha! but I have acted that 
part times enough in my past days on the theater-scene. ’ 
And then she takes off the clothes again, and bids Sarah 
pack them up at once in one trunk, and pack the things 
she has made for herself in another. ‘ The doctor orders 
me to go away out of this damp, soft Cornwall climate to 
where the air is fr^shand dry and cheerful-keen,’ she says, 


280 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


and laughs again, till the room rings with it. At the same 
time Sarah begins to pack, and takes some knickknack 
things off the table, and among them a brooch which has 
on it a likeness of the sea-captain’s face. The mistress sees 
her, turns white in the cheeks, trembles all over, snatches 
the brooch away, and locks it up in the cabinet in a great 
hurry, as if the look of it frightened her. ‘ I shall leave 
that behind me,’ she says, and turns round on her heel, 
and goes quickly out of the room. You guess now what 
the thing was that Mistress Treverton had it in her mind 
to do?” 

He addressed the question to Rosamond first, and then 
repeated it to Leonard. They both answered in the affirma- 
tive, and entreated him to go on. 

” You guess?” he said. It is more than Sarah, at that 
time, could do. What with the misery in her own mind, 
and the strange ways and strange words of her mistress, 
the wits that were in her were all confused. Neverthe- 
less, what her mistress has said to her, that she has always 
done; and together alone those two from the house of 
Porthgenna drive away. Not a word says the mistress 
till they have got to the journey’s end for the first day, 
and are stopping at their inn among strangers for the 
night. Then at last she speaks out : ‘ Put you on, Sarah, 

the good linen and the good gown to-morrow, ’ she says, 

‘ but keep the common bonnet and the common shawl till 
we get into the carriage again. I shall put on the coarse 
linen and the coarse gown, and keep the good bonnet and 
shawl. We shall pass so the people at the inn, on our way 
to the carriage, without very much risk of surprising 
them by our change of gowns. AVhen we are out on the 
road again, we can change bonnets and shawls in the car- 
riage— and then, it is all done. You are the married lady, 
Mrs. Treverton, and I am your maid who waits on you, 
Sarah Leeson. ’ At that, the glimmering on Sarah’s mind 
breaks in at last : she shakes with the fright it gives her, 
and all she can say is, ‘ Oh, mistress, for the love of 
Heaven! what is it you mean to do?’ ‘ I mean,’ the mis- 
tress answers, ‘ to save you, my faithful servant, from dis- 
grace and ruin ; to prevent every penny that the captain 
has got from going to that rascal-monster, his brother, 
who slandered me ; and, last and most, I mean to keep my 
husband from going away to sea again, by making him 
love me as he has never loved me yet. Must I say more, 
you poor, afflicted, frightened creature— or is it enough 
so?’ 

“And all that Sarah can answer, is to cry bitter tears, 
and to say faintly, ‘No.’ ‘Do you doubt,’ says the 
mistress, and grips her by the arm, and looks her close hi 


THE DEAD SECBET 


281 


the face with fierce eyes — ‘ Do you doubt which is best, to 
cast yourself into the world forsaken and disgraced and 
ruined, or to save yourself from shame, and make a friend 
of me for the rest of your life? You weak, wavering, 
baby woman, if you cannot decide for yourself, I shall for 
you. As I will, so it shall be! To morrow, and the day 
after that, we go on and on, up to the north, where my 
good fool of a doctor says the air is cheerful-keen — up to 
the north, where nobody knows me or has heard my name. 
I, the maid, shall spread the report that you, the lady, are 
weak in your health. No strangers shall see you, but the 
doctor and the nurse, when the time to call them comes. 
Who they may be, I know not ; but this I do know, that 
the one and the other will serve our purpose without the 
least suspicion of what it is; and that when we get back to 
Cornwall again, the secret between us two will to no third 
person have been trusted, and will remain a Dead Secret 
to the end of the world!’ With all the strength of the 
strong will that is in her, at the hush of night and in a 
house of strangers, she speaks those words to the woman 
of all women the most frightened, the most afflicted, the 
most helpless, the most ashamed. What need to say the 
end? On that night Sarah first stooped her shoulders to 
the burden that has weighed heavier and heavier on them 
with every year, for all her after-life. ’ ’ 

“How many days did they travel toward the north?” 
asked Eosamond, eagerly. “Where did the journey end? 
In England or in Scotland?” 

“ In England,” answered Uncle Joseph. “ But the name 
of the place escapes my foreign tongue. It was a little 
town by the side of the sea— the great sea that washes be- 
tween my country and yours. There they stopped, and 
there they waited till the time came to send for the doctor 
and the nurse. And as Mistress Treverton had said it 
should be, so, from t])e first to the last, it was. The doctor 
and the nurse, and the people of the house were all stran- 
gers ; and to this day, if they still live, they believe that 
Sarah was the sea-captain’s wife, and that Mistress Trever- 
ton was the maid who waited on her. Not till they were 
far back on their way home with the child did the two 
change gowns again, and return each to her proper place. 
The first friend at Porthgenna that the mistress sends for to 
show the child to, when she gets back, is the doctor who 
lives there. ‘ Did you think what was the matter with me, 
when you sent me away to change the air?’ she says, and 
laughs. And the doctor, he laughs too, and says, ‘ Yes, 
surely ! but I was too cunning to say what I thought in 
those early days, because, at such times there is always 
fear of a mistake. And you found the fine dry air so good 




THE DEAD SECBET. 


for you that you stopped?’ he says. ‘Well, that was 
right ! right for yourself and right also for the child. ’ 

“ And the doctor laughs again and the mistress with 
him, and Sarah, who stands by and hears them, feels as 
if her heart would burst within her, with the horror and 
the misery and the shame of that deceit. When the doc- 
tor’s back is turned, she goes down on her knees, and begs 
and prays with all her soul that the mistress will repent, 
and send her away with her child, to be heard of at Porth- 
genna no more. The mistress, with that tyrant will of 
hers, has but four words of answer to give — ‘ It is too late !’ 
Five weeks after, the sea-captain comes back, and the 
‘ Too late ’ is a truth that no repentance can ever alter 
more. The mistress’ cunning hand that has guided the 
deceit from the first, guides it always to the last — guides it 
so that the captain, for the love of her and of the child, goes 
back to sea no more— guides it till the time when she lays 
her down on the bed to die, and leaves all the burden of 
the secret, and all the guilt of the confession, to Sarah — 
to Sarah, who, under the tyranny of that tyrant-will, has 
lived in the house, for five long years, a stranger to her 
own child !” 

Five years!” murmured Rosamond, raising the baby 
gently in her arms, till his face touched hers. “Oh, me!” 
five lon^ years a stranger to the blood of her blood, to the 
heart of her heart !” 

“And all the years after!” said the old man. “The 
lonesome years and years among strangers, with no sight 
of the child that was growing up, with no heart to pour the 
story of her sorrow into the ear of any living creature, not 
even into mine! ‘Better,’! said to her, when she could 
speak to me no more, and when her face was turned away 
again on the pillow — ‘ a thousand times better, my child, 
if you had told the Secret!’ ‘ Could I tell it,’ she said, ‘ to 
the master who trusted me? Could I tell it afterward to 
the child, whose birth was a reproach to me? Could she 
listen to the story of her mother’s shame, told by her 
mother’s lips? How will she listen to it now. Uncle Joseph, 
when she hears it from you% Remember the life she has 
led, and the high place she has held in the world. How 
can she forgive me? How can she ever look at me in kind- 
ness again?’ ” 

‘‘You never left her,” cried Rosamond, interposing be- 
fore he could say more — “surely, surely, you never left 
her with that thought in her heart !” 

Uncle Joseph’s head drooped on his breast. “What 
words of mine could change it?” he asked, sadly. 

“ Oh, Lenny, do you hear that? I must leave you, and 
leave the baby. I must go to her, or those last words about 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


m 


me will break my heart.” The passionate tears burst from 
her eyes as she spoke ; and she rose hastily from her seat, 
with the child in her arms. 

“Not to-night,” said Uncle Joseph. “She said to me 
at parting, ‘I can bear no more to-night; give me till the 
morning to get as strong as I can.’ ” 

“Oh, go back, then, yourself !” cried Rosamond. “Go, 
for God’s sake, without wasting another moment, and make 
her think of me as she ouglit! Tell her how I listened to 
you, with my own child sleeping on my bosom all the time 
— tell her — oh, no, no! words are too cold for it! — come 
here, come close. Uncle Joseph (I shall always call you so 
now) ; come close to me and kiss my cliild — grandchild ! 
—kiss him on this cheek, because it has lain nearest to my 
heart. And now, go back, kind and dear old man — go 
back to her bedside, and say nothing but that I sent that 
kiss to herP'* 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE CLOSE OF DAY. 

The night, with its wakeful anxieties, wore away at last; 
and the morning light dawned hopefully, for it brought 
with it the promise of an end to Rosamond’s suspense. 

The first event of the day was the arrival of Mr. Nixon, 
who had received a note on the previous evening, written 
by Leonard’s desire, to invite him to breakfast. Before the 
lawyer withdrew, he had settled with Mr. and Mrs. Frank- 
land all the preliminary arrangements that were necessary 
to effect the restoration of the purchase-money of Porth- 
genna Tower, and had dispatched a messenger with a letter 
to Bayswater, announcing his intention of calling upon 
Andrew Treverton that afternoon, on private business of 
importance relating to the personal estate of his late 
brother. 

Toward noon, Uncle Joseph arrived at the hotel to take 
Rosamond with him to the house where her mother lay 
ill. 

He came in, talking, in the highest spirits, of the won- 
derful change for the better that had been wrought in his 
niece by the affectionate message which he had taken to 
her on the previous evening. He declared that it had 
made her look happier, stronger, younger, all in a moment; 
that it had given her the longest, quietest, sweetest night’s 
sleep she had enjoyed for years and years past ; and last, 
best triumph of all, that its good influence had been ac- 
knowledged, not an hour since, by the doctor himself. 

Rosamond listened thankfully, but it was with a wan- 
dering attention, with a mind ill at ease. When she had 


m 


THE DEAD SECRET 


taken leave of her husband, and when she and Uncle Jo- 
seph were out in the street together, there was something 
in the prospect of the approaching interview between her 
mother and herself which, in spite of her efforts to resist 
tlie sensation, almost daunted her. If they could have 
come together, and have recognized each other without 
time to think what should be first said or done on either 
side, the meeting would have been nothing more than the 
natural result of the discovery of the Secret. But, as it 
was, the waiting, the doubting, the mournful story of the 
past, which had filled up the emptiness of the last day of 
suspense, all had their depressing effect on Eosamond’s im- 
pulsive disposition. Without a thought in her heart which 
was not tender, compassionate, and true toward her 
mother, she now felt, nevertheless, a vague sense of em- 
barrassment, which increased to positive uneasiness the 
nearer she and the old man drew to their short journey’s 
end. As they stopped at last at the house-door, she was 
shocked to find herself thinking beforehand of wliat first 
words it would be best to say, of what first things it would 
be best to do, as if she had been about to visit a total 
stranger, whose favorable opinion she washed to secure, and 
whose readiness to receive her cordially was a matter of 
doubt. 

The first person whom they saw after the door was 
opened was the doctor. He advanced toward them from 
a little empty room at the end of the hall, and asked per- 
mission to speak with Mrs. Frankland for a few minutes. 
Leaving Eosamondto her interview with the doctor. Uncle 
Joseph gayly ascended the stairs to tell his niece of her 
arrival, with an activity which might well have been en- 
vied by many a man of half his years. 

“ Is she worse? Is there any danger in my seeing her?” 
asked Eosamond, as the doctor led her into the empty 
room. “ Quite the contrary,” he replied. “ She is much 
better this morning; and the improvement, I find, is mainly 
due to the composing and cheering influence on her mind 
of a message which she received from you last night. It 
is the discovery of this which makes me anxious to speak 
to you now on the subject of one particular symptom of 
her mental condition which surprised and alarmed me 
when I first discovered it, and which has perplexed me 
very much ever since. She is suffering — not to detain you, 
and to put the matter at once in the plainest terms — under 
a mental hallucination of a very extraordinary kind, 
Which, so far as I have observed it, affects her, generally, 
toward the close of the day, when the light gets obscure. 
At such times, there is an expression in her eyes as if she 
fancied some person had walked suddenly into the room. 


THE DEAD SECRET 


285 


She looks and talks at perfect vacancy, as you or I might 
look or talk at some one who was really standing and 
listening to us. The old man, her uncle, tells me that he 
first observed this when she came to see him (in Cornwall, 
I think he said) a short time since. She was speaking to 
him then on private affairs of her own, when she suddenly 
stopped, just as the evening was closing in, startled him 
by a question on the old superstitious subject of the re- 
appearance of the dead, and then, looking away at a shad- 
owed corner of the room, began to talk at it— exactly as I 
have seen her look and heard her talk up-stairs. Whether 
she fancies that she is pursued by an apparition, or whether 
she imagines that some living person enters her room at 
certain times, is more than I can say; and the old man 
gives me no help in guessing at the truth. Can you throw 
any light on the matter?” 

“I hear of it now for the first time,” answered Eosa- 
mond, looking at the doctor in amazement and alarm. 

“ Perhaps,” he rejoined, “she maybe more communi- 
cative with you than she is with me. If you could manage 
to be by her bedside at dusk to day or to-morrow, and if 
you think you are not likely to be frightened by it, I should 
very much wish you to see and hear her, when she is under 
the influence of her delusion. I have tned in vain to draw 
her attention away from it, at the time, or to get her to 
speak of it afterward. You have evidently considerable in- 
fluence over her, and you might therefore succeed where 
I have failed. In her state of health, I attach great im- 
portance to clearing her mind of everything that clouds 
and oppresses it, and especially of such a serious hallucina- 
tion as that which I have been describing. If you could 
succeed in combating it, you would be doing her the great 
est service, and would be materially helping my efforts to 
improve her health. Do you mind trying the experi- 
ment?” 

Eosamond promised to devote herself unreservedly to 
this service, or to any other which was for the pa- 
tient’s good. The doctor thanked her, and led the way 
back into the hall again. Uncle Joseph was descend- 
ing the stairs as they came out of the room. “She is 
ready and longing to see you,” he whispered in Eosa- 
mond’s ear. 

“I am sure I need not impress on you again the very 
serious necessity of keeping her composed,” said the doc- 
tor, taking his leave. “ It is, I assure you, no exaggera- 
tion to say that her life depends on it.” 

Eosamond bowed to him in silence, and in silence fol- 
lowed the old man up the stairs. 


286 THE DEAD SECRET. 

At the door of a back room on the second floor Uncle 
Joseph stopped. 

“ She is there,”- he whispered, eagerly. “ I leave you to 
go in by yourself, for it is best that you should be alone 
with her at first. I shall walk about the streets in the fine, 
warm sunshine, and think of j^ou both, and come back 
after a little. Go in ; and the blessing and the mercy of 
God go with you!” He lifted her hand to his lips, and 
softly and quickly descended the stairs again. 

Rosamond stood alone before the door. A momentary 
tremor shook her from head to foot as she stretched out 
her hand to knock at it. The same sweet voice that she 
had last heard in her bedroom at West Winston answered 
her now. As its tones fell on her ear, a thought of her 
child stole quietly into her heart, and stilled its quick 
throbbing. She opened the door at once and went in. 

Neither the look of the room inside, nor the view from 
the window; neither its characteristic ornaments, nor its 
prominent pieces of furniture; none of the objects in it or 
about it, which would have caught her quick observation 
at other times, struck it now. From the moment when 
she opened the door, she saw nothing but the pillows of 
the bed, the head resting on them, and the face turned to- 
ward hers. As she stepped across the threshold, that face 
changed ; the eyelids drooped a little, and the pale cheeks 
were tinged suddenly with burning red. 

Was her mother ashamed to look at her? 

The bare doubt freed Rosamond in an instant from all 
the self-distrust, all the embarrassment, all the hesitation 
about choosing her words and directing her actions which 
had fettered her generous impulses up to this time. She 
ran to the bed, raised the worn, shrinking figure in her 
arms, and laid the poor weary head gently on her warm, 
young bosom. “ I have come at last, mother, to take my 
turn at nursing you,” she said. Her heart swelled as those 
simple words came from it — her eyes overflowed- she could 
say no more. 

“ Don’t cry!” murmured the faint, sweet voice timidly. 

‘ ‘ I have no right to bring you here and make you sorry. 
Don’t, don’t cry!” 

“Oh, hush ! hush? I shall do nothing but cry if you talk 
to me like that!” said Rosamond. “ Let us forget that we 
have ever been parted— call me by my name— speak to me 
as I shall speak to my own child, if God spares me to see 
him grow up. Say ‘ Rosamond,’ and — oh, pray, pray, 
— tell me to do something for you !” She tore asunder pas- 
sionately the sti ings of her bonnet, and threw it from her 
on the nearest chair. “Look ! here is your glass of lemon- 
ade pp the table. Say * Rosamond, bring me my lemon - 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


287 


ade !” say it familiarly, mother ! say it as if you knew that 
I was bound to obey you !” 

She repeated the words after her daughter, but still not 
in steady tones — repeated them with a sad, wondering 
smile, and with a lingering of the voice on the name of 
Rosamond, as if it was a luxury to her to utter it. 

“ You made me so happy with that message and with 
the kiss you sent me from your child,” she said, when 
Rosamond had given her the lemonade, and was seated 
quietly by the bedside again. “ It was such a kind way 
of saying that you pardoned me! It gave me all the cour- 
age I wanted to speak to you as I am speaking now. Per- 
haps my illness has changed me — but I don’t feel fright- 
ened and strange with you, as I thought I should, at our 
first meeting after you knew the Secret. I think I shall 
soon get well enough to see your child. Is he like what 

you were at his age? If he is, he must be very, very ” 

She stopped. “I may think of that,” she added, after 
waiting a little, “ but I had better not talk of it, or I shall 
cry too; and I want to have done with sorrow now.” 

While she spoke those words, while her eyes were fixed 
with wistful eagerness on her daughter’s face, the whole 
instinct of neatness was still mechanically at work in her 
wea)i, wasted fingers. Rosamond had tossed her gloves 
from her on the bed but the minute before ; and already 
her mother had taken them up, and was smoothing them 
out carefully and folding them neatly together, all the while 
she spoke. 

“ Call me ‘ mother ’ again,” she said, as Rosamond took 
the gloves from her and thanked her with a kiss for fold- 
ing them up. “ I have never heard you call me ‘ mother ’ 
till now — never, never till now, from the day when you 
were born !” 

Rosamond checked the tears that were rising in her eyes 
again, and repeated the word. 

“It is all the happiness I want, to lie here and look at 
you, and hear you say that! Is there any other woman 
in the world, my love, who has a face so beautiful and so 
kind as yours ?” She paused and smiled faintly. ‘ ‘ I can’t 
look at those sweet rosy lips now,” she said, “without 
thinking how many kisses they owe me !” 

“ If you had only let me pay the debt before !” said Rosa- 
mond, taking her mother’s hand, as she was accustomed 
to take her child’s, and placing it on her neck. “ If you 
had only spoken the first time we met, when you came to 
nurse me ! How sorrowfully I have thought of that since ! 
Oh, mother, did I distress you much in my ignorance? 
Did it make you cry when you thought of me after that?’’ 

“ Distress me! All my distress, Rosamond, has been of 


288 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


my own making, not of yours. My kind, thoughtful 
love ! you said, ‘Don’t be hard on her’ — do you remem- 
ber? When I was being sent away, deservedly sent away, 
dear, for frightening you, you said to your husband, 
‘ Don’t be hard on her!’ Only five words— but, oh, what 
a comfort it was to me afterward to think that you had 
said them ! I did want to kiss you so, Eosamond, when I 
was brushing your hair. I had such a hard fight of it to 
keep from crying out loud when I heard you, behind the 
bed -curtains, wishing your little child good-night. My 
heart was in my mouth, choking me all that time. I 
took your part afterward, when I went back to my mis- 
tress — I wouldn’t hear her say a harsh word of you. I 
could have looked a hundred mistresses in the face then, 
and contradicted them all Oh, no, no, no I you never dis- 
tressed me. My worst grief at going away was years and 
years before I came to nurse you at West Winston. It 
was „w hen I left my place at Porthgenna; when I stole 
into your nursery on that dreadful morning, and when I 
saw you with both your little arms round my master’s neck. 
The doll you had taken to bed with you was in one of your 
hands, and 3- our head was resting on the captain’s bosom, 
just as mine rests now — oh, so happily, Eosamond! — on 
yours. 

“ I heard the last words he was speaking to you — words 
you were too young to remember. ‘Hush! Eosie, dear,’ 
he said, ‘ don’t cry any more for poor mamma. Think of 
poor papa, and try to comfort him !’ There, my love — 
there was the bitterest distress and the hardest to bear! 
I, your own mother, standing like a spy, and hearing him 
say that to the child I dared not own ! ‘ Think of poor 

papa!’ My own Eosamond! you know, now, what father 
I thought of when he said those words! How could I tell 
him the secret? how could I give him the letter, with his 
wife dead that morning — with nobody but you to comfort 
him— with the awful truth crushing down upon my heart, 
at every word he spoke, as heavily as ever the rock crushed 
down upon the father you never saw !” 

“ Don’t speak of it now!” said Eosamond. “Don’t let 
us refer again to the past: I know all I ought to know, all 
I wish to know of it. We will talk of the future, mother, 
and of happier times to come. Let me tell you about my 
husband. If any words can praise him as he ought to be 
praised, and thank him as he ought to be thanked, I am 
sure mine ought— I am sure yours will! Let me tell you 
what he said and what he did when I read to him the letter 
that I found in the Myrtle Eoom. Yes, yes, do let me!” 

Warned by a remembrance of the doctor’s last injunc- 
tions ; trembling in secret, as she felt under her hand the 


THE DEAD SECRET 


289 


heavy, toilsome, irregular heaving of her mother’s heart, 
as she saw the rapid changes of color, from pale to red, and 
from red to pale again, that fluttered across her mother’s 
face, she resolved to let no more words pass between them 
which were of a nature to recall painfully the sorrows and 
the suffering of the years that were gone. After describ- 
ing the interview between her husband and herself which 
ended in the disclosure of the secret, she led her mother, 
with compassionate abruptness, to speak of the future, of 
the time when she would be able to travel again, of the 
happiness of returning together to Cornwall, of the little 
festival they might hold on arriving at Uncle Joseph’s 
house in Truro, and of the time after that, when they 
might go on still further to Porthgenna, or perhaps to some 
other place where new scenes and new faces might help 
them to forget all sad associations which it was best to 
think of no more, 

Rosamond was still speaking on these topics, her mother 
was still listening to her with growing interest in every 
word that she said, when Uncle Joseph returned. He 
brought in with him a basket of flowers and a basket of 
fruit, which he held up in triumph at the foot of his niece’s 
bed. 

“ I have been walking about, my child, in the flne bright 
sunshine,” he said, “ and waiting to give your face plenty 
of time to look happy, so that I might see it again as I 
want to see it always, for the rest of my life. Aha, Sarah! 
it is I who have brought the right doctor to cure you 1” he 
added, gayly, looking at Rosamond. “ She has made you 
better already. Wait but a little while longer, and she 
sht'ill get you up from your bed again, with your two cheeks 
as red, and your heart as light, and your tongue as fast to 
chatter as mine. See the fine flowers and the fruit I have 
bought that is nice to your eyes, and nice to your nose, and 
nicest of all to put into your mouth ! It is festival-time 
with us to-day, and we must make the room bright, bright, 
bright, all over. And then, there is your dinner to come 
soon; I have seen it on the dish — a cherub among the 
chicken- fowls ! And, after that, there is your fine sound 
sleep, with Mozart to sing the cradle song, and with me to 
sit for watch, and to go down-stairs when you wake up 
again, and fetch your cup of tea. Ah, my child, my child, 
what a fine thing it is to have come at last to this festival- 
day !” 

With a bright look at Rosamond, and with both his 
hands full of flowers, he turned away from his niece to 
begin decorating the room. Except when she thanked the 
old man for the presents he had brought, her attention had 
rawer wandered, all the while he had been speaking, from 


290 


mE DEAD SECRET. 


her daughter’s face; and her first words, when he was 
silent again, were addressed to Rosamond alone. 

“While I am happy with 7my child,” she said, “I am 
keeping you from yours. I, of all persons, ought to be 
the last to part you from eacli other too long. Go back 
now, my love, to your husband and your child ; and leave 
me to my grateful thoughts and my dreams of better 
times.” 

“ If you please, answer Yes to that, for your mother’s 
sake,” said Uncle Joseph, before Rosamond could reply. 
“ The doctor says she must take her repose in the day as 
well as her repose in the night. And how shall I get her 
to close her eyes, so long as she has the temptation to keep 
them open upon 

Rosamond felt the truth of those last words, and con- 
sented to go back for a few hours to the hotel, on the 
understanding that she was to resume her place at the 
bedside in the evening. After making this arrangement, 
she waited long enough in the room to see the meal 
brought up which Uncle Joseph had announced, and to 
aid the old man in encouraging her mother to partake 
of it. When the tray had been removed, and when the 
pillows of the bed had been comfortably arranged by 
her own hands, she at last prevailed on herself to take 
leave. 

Tier mother’s arms lingered round her neck ; her mother's 
cheek nestled fondly against her. “ Go, my dear, go now, 
or I shall get too selfish to part with you even for a few 
hours,” murmured the sweet voice, in the lowest, softest 
tones. “My own Rosamond! I have no words to bless 
you that are good enough ; no words to thank you that 
will speak as gratefully for me as they ought. Happiness 
has been long in reaching me — but, oh, how mercifully it 
has come at last I 

Before she passed the door, Rosamond stopped and 
looked back into the room. The table, the mantelpiece, 
the little frame prints on the wall were bright with 
flowers; the musical box was just playing the first sweet 
notes of the air from Mozart; Uncle Joseph was seated al- 
ready in his accustomed place by the bed, with the basket 
of fruit on his knees; the pale, worn face on the pillow was 
tenderly lighted up by a smile ; peace and comfort and re- 
pose, all mingled together happily in tiie picture of the 
sick-room, all joined in leading Rosamond’s thoughts to 
dwell quietly on the hope of a happier time. 

Three hours passed. The last glory of the sun was light- 
ing the long summer day to its rest in the western heaven, 
when Rosamond returned to her mother’s bedside. 


THE DEAD SECEET. 




She entered the room softly. The one window in it 
looked toward the west, and on that side of the bed the 
chair was placed which Uncle Joseph had occupied when 
she left him, and in which she now found him still seated 
on her return. He raised his fingers to his Ups, and looked 
toward the bed, as she opened the door. Her mother was 
asleep, with her hand resting in the hand of the old man. 

As Rosamond noiselessly advanced, she saw that Uncle 
Joseph’s eyes looked dim and weary. The constraint of 
the position that he occupied, which made it impossible 
for him to move without the risk of awakening his niece, 
seemed to be beginning to fatigue him, Rosamond re- 
moved her bonnet and shawl, and made a sign to him to 
rise and let her take his place. 

“ Yes, yes!” she whispered, seeing him reply by a shake 
of the head. “Let liie take my turn, while you go out a 
little and enjoy the cool evening air. There is no fear of 
waking her ; her hand is not clasping yours, but only rest- 
ing in it — let me steal mine into its place gently, and we 
shall not disturb her.” 

She slipped her hand under her mother’s while she 
spoke. Uncle Joseph smiled as he rose from his chair, and 
resigned his place to her. “You will have your way,” 
he said; “you are too quick and sharp for an old man 
like me.” 

“ Has she been long asleep?” asked Rosamond. 

“ Nearly two hours,” answered Uncle Joseph. “But it 
has not been the good sleep I wanted for her — a dreaming, 
talking, restless sleep. It is only ten minutes since she 
has been so quiet as you see her now.” 

“ Surely you let in too much light?” whispered Rosa- 
mond, looking round at the window, through which the 
glow of the evening sky poured warmly into the room. 

“ No, no!” he hastily rejoined. “Asleep or awake, she 
always wants the light. If I go away for a little while, as 
you tell me, and if it gets on to be dusk before I come 
back, light both those candles on the chimney-piece. I 
shall try to be here again before that ; but if the time slips 
by too fast for me, and if it so happens that she wakes and 
talks strangely, and looks much away from you into that 
far corner of the room there, remember that the matcbes 
and the candles are together on the chimney-piece, and 
that the sooner you light them after the dim twilight time, 
the better it will be.” With these words he stole on tiptoe 
to the door and went out. 

His parting directions recalled Rosamond to a remem- 
brance of what had passed between the doctor and herself 
that morning. She looked round again anxiously to the 
window. 


29^ 


TUB DEAb SECRET, ^ 


The sun was just sinking beyond the distant house-tops; 
the close of day was not far off. 

As she turned her head once more toward the bed, a mo- 
mentary chill crept over her. She trembled a little, partly 
at the sensation itself, partly afc the recollection it aroused 
of that other chill which had struck her in the solitude of 
the Myrtle Room. 

Stirred by the mysterious sympathies of touch, her 
mother’s hand at the same instand moyed in hers, and over 
the sad peacefulness of the weary face there fluttered a 
momentary trouble — the flying shadow of a dream. The 
pale, parted lips opened, closed, quivered^ opened again ; 
the toiling breath came and went quickly and more 
quickly; the head moved uneasily on the pillow;, the eye- 
lids half unclosed themselves; low, faint, moaning sounds 
poured rapidly from the lips— changed ere long to half- 
articulated sentences— then merged softly into intelligible 
speech, and uttered these words : 

“Swear that you will not destroy this paper! Swear 
that you will not take this paper away with you if you 
leave the house 1” 

The words that followed these were whispered so rapidly 
and so low that Rosamond’s ear failed to catch tliem. 
They were followed by a short silence. Then the dreaming 
voice spoke again suddenly, arid spoke louder. 

“Where? where? where?” it said. “In the book-case? 
In the table-drawer? Stop! stop! In the picture of the 
ghost ” 

The last words struck cold on Rosamond’s heart. She 
drew back suddenly with a movement of alarm — checked 
herself the instant after, and bent down over the pillow 
again. But it was too late; Her hand had moved 
abruptly when she drew back, and her mother awoke 
with a start and a faint cry — with vacant, terror-stricken 
eyes, and with the perspiration standing thick on her fore- 
head. 

“ Mother!” cried Rosamond, raising her on the pillow. 
“ I have come back. Don’t you know me?” 

“ Mother?” she repeated, in mournful, questioning tones 
— “Mother?” At the second repetition of the word a 
bright flush of delight and surprise broke out on her face, 
and she clasped both arms suddenly round her daughter’s 
neck. “Oh, my own Rosamond!” she said. “If I had 
ever been used to waking up and seeing your dear face look 
at me, I should have known you sooner, in spite of my 
dream! Did you wake me, my love? or did I wake my- 
self?” 

“ I am afraid I awoke you, mother.” 

“ Don’t say * afraid.’ I would wake from the sweetest 


THE DEAD SECRET 


293 


sleep that ever woman had to see your face and to hear 
you say ‘ mother ’ to me. You have delivered me, my 
love, from the terror of one of my dreadful dreams. Oh, 
Eosamond ! I think I should live to be happy in your love, 
if I could only get Porthgenna Tower out of my mind— 
if I could only never remember again the bed-chamber 
where my mistress died, and the room where I hid the let- 
ter ” 

“We will try and forget Porthgenna Tower now,” said 
Eosamond. “ Shall we talk about other places where I 
have lived, which you have never seen? Or shall I read to 
you, mother? Have you got any book here that you are 
fond of?” 

She looked across the bed at the table on the other side. 
There was nothing on it but some bottles of medicine, a 
few of Uncle Joseph’s flowers in a glass of water, and a 
little oblong work-box. She looked round at the chest of 
drawers behind her — there were no books placed on the 
top of it. Before she turned toward the bed again, her 
eyes wandered aside to the window. The sun was lost 
beyond the distant house-tops ; the close of day was near 
at hand. 

“ If I could forget ! Oh, me, if I could only forget !” said 
her mother, sighing wearily, and beating her hand on the 
coverlid of the bed. 

“Are you well enough, dear, to amuse yourself with 
work?” asked Eosamond, pointing to the little oblong box 
on the table, and trying to lead the conversation to a 
harmless, every-day topic, by asking questions about it. 
“ What work do you do? Maj^ I look at it?” 

Her face lost it weary, suffering look, and brightened 
once more into a smile. “There is no work there,” she 
said. “ All the treasures I had in the world, till you came 
to see me, are shut up in that one little box. Open it, my 
love, and look inside.” 

Eosamond obeyed, placing the box on the bed where her 
mother could see it easily. The first object that she dis- 
covered inside was a little book, in dark, worn binding. 
It was an old copy of Wesley’s Hymns. Some withered 
blades of grass lay between its pages ; and on one of its 
blank leaves was this inscription — “Sarah Leeson, her 
book. The gift of Hugh Pol wheal.” 

“ Look at it, my dear,” said her mother. “I want you 
to know it again. When my time conies to leave you, 
Eosamond, lay it on my bosom with your own dear hands, 
and put a little morsel of your hair in it, and bury me in 
the grave in Porthgenna churchyard, where he has been 
waiting for me to come to him so many weary years. The 
pther things in the bo:$;, Eosamond, belong to you ; they 


294 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


are little stolen keepsakes that used to remind me of my 
child, when I was alone in the world. Perhaps, years and 
years hence, when your brown hair begins to grow gray 
like mine, you may like to show these poor trifles to your 
children when you talk about me. Don’t mind telling 
them, Rosamond, how your mother sinned and how she 
suffered— you can always let these little trifles speak for 
her at the end. The least of them will show that she al- 
ways loved you.” 

She took out of the box a morsel of neatly folded white 
paper, which had been placed under the book of Wesley’s 
Hymns, opened it, and showed her daughter a few faded 
laburnum leaves that lay inside. “ I took these from your 
bed, Rosamond, when I came, as a stranger, to nurse you 
at West Winston. I tried to take a ribbon out of your 
trunk, love, after I had taken the flowers — a ribbon that I 
knew had been round your neck. But the doctor came 
near at the time, and frightened me.” 

She folded the paper up again, laid it aside on the table, 
and drew from the box next a small print which had been 
taken from the illustrations to a pocket-book. It repre- 
sented a little girl, in gypsy- hat, sitting by the waterside, 
and weaving a daisy chain. As a design, it was worthless ; 
as a print, it had not i^ven the mechanical merit of being a 
good impression. Underneath it a line was written in 
faintly penciled letters — “ Rosamond when I last saw her.” 

“ It was never pretty enough for you,” she said. “ But 
still there was something in it that helped me to remem- 
ber what my own love was like when she was a little 
girl.” 

She put the engraving aside with the laburnum leaves, 
and took from the box a leaf of a copy-book, folded in two, 
out of which there dropped a tiny strip of paper, covered 
with small printed letters. She looked at the strip of 
paper first. ‘‘The advertisement of your marriage, Rosa- 
mond,” she said. “ I used to be fond of reading it over 
and over again to myself when I was alone, and trying to 
fancy how you looked and what dress you wore. If I had 
only known when you were going to be married, I would 
have ventured into the church, my love, to look at you and 
at your husband. But that was not to be — and perhaps it 
was best so, for the seeing you in that stolen way might 
only have made my trials harder to bear afterward. I 
have had no other keepsake to remind me of you, Rosa- 
mond, except this leaf out of your first copy-book. The 
nurse-maid at Porthgenna tore up the rest one day to light 
the fire, and I took this leaf when she was not looking. 
See ! you had not got as far as words then — you could only 
do up-stx'okes axxd down-strokes^ Oh, me! how many 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


m 

times I have sat looking at this one leaf of paper, and try- 
ing to fancy that I saw your small child’s hand traveling 
over it, with the pen held tight in the rosy little fingers. 
I think I have cried oftener, my darling, over that first 
copy of yours than over all my other keepsakes put to- 
gether.” 

Rosamond turned aside her face toward the window to 
hide the tears which she could rsetrain no longer. 

As she wiped them away, the first sight of the darkening 
sky warned her that the twilight dimness was coming soon. 
How dull and faint the glow in the west looked now ! how 
near it was to the close of day ! 

When she turned toward the bed again, her mother was 
still looking at the leaf of the copy-book. 

“ That nurse-maid who tore up all the rest of it to light 
the fire,” she said, “ was a kind friend to me in those early 
days at Porthgenna. She used sometimes to let me put 
you to bed, Rosamond; and never asked questions, or 
teased me, as the rest of them did. She risked the loss of 
her place l3y being so good to me. My mistress was afraid 
of my betraying myself and betraying her if I was much in 
the nursery, and she gave orders that I was not to go 
there, because it was not my place. None of the other 
women-servants were so often stopped from playing with 
you and kissing you, Rosamond, as I was. But the nurse- 
maid— God bless and prosper her for it !— stood my friend. 
I often lifted you into your little cot, my love, and wished 
you good-night, when my mistress thought I was at work 
in her room. You used to say you liked your nurse better 
than you liked me, but you never told me so fretfully ; and 
you always put your laughing lips up to mine whenever I 
asked you for a kiss !” 

Rosamond laid her head gently on the pillow by the side 
of her mother’s. “ Try to think less of the past, dear, and 
more of the future,” she whispered, pleadingly; “try to 
think of the time when my child will help you to recall 
those old days without their sorrow — the time when you 
wull teach him to put his lips up to yours, as I used to put 
mine.” 

“I will try, Rosamond — but my only thoughts of the 
future, for years and years past, have been thoughts of 
meeting you in heaven. If my sins are forgiven, how shall 
we meet there? Shall you be like my little child to me — 
the child I never saw again after she was five years old? I 
wonder if the mercy of God will recompense me for our 
long separation on earth? I wonder if you will first ap- 
pear to me in the happy world with your child’s face, and 
be what you should have been to me on earth, my little 
angel that I can carry in my arms? . If we pray in heaven, 


296 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


shall I teach y ou your prayers there, as some comfort to 
me for never having taught them to you here?” 

She paused, smiled sadly, and, closing her eyes, gave 
herself in silence to the dream-thoughts that were still float - 
ing in her mind. Thinking that she might sink to rest 
again if she was left undisturbed, Rosamond neither moved 
nor spoke. After watching the peaceful face for some 
time, she became conscious that the light was fading on it 
slowly. As that conviction impressed itself on her, she 
looked round at the window once more. 

The western clouds wore their quiet twilight colors ah 
ready ; the close of day had come. 

The moment she moved the chair, she felt her mother’s 
hand on her shoulder. When she turned again toward the 
bed, she saw her mother’s eyes open and looking at her— 
looking at her, as she thought, with a change in their ex- 
pression, a change to vacancy. 

“ Why do I talk of heaveri?” she said, turning her face 
suddenly toward the darkening sky, and speaking in low, 
muttering tones. “ How do I know I am fit to go there? 
And yet, Rosamond, I am not guilty of breaking my oath 
to my mistress. You can say for me that I never de- 
stroyed the letter, and that I never took it away with me 
when I left the house. I tried to get it out of the Myrtle 
Room ; but I only wanted to hide it somewhere else. I 
never thought to take it away from the house; I never 
meant to break my oath.” 

“ It will be dark soon, mother. Let me get up for one 
moment to light the candles.” 

Her hand crept softly upward, and clung fast round 
Rosamond’s neck. 

“ I never swore to give him the letter,” she said. 
“ There was no crime in the hiding of it. You found it in 
a picture, Rosamond ? They used to call it a picture of the 
Porthgenna ghost. Nobody knew how old it was, or when 
it came into the house. My mistress hated it, because the 
painted face had a strange likeness to hers. She told me, 
when first I lived at Porthgenna, to take it down from the 
wall and destroy it. I was afraid to do that ; so I hid it 
away, before ever you were born, in the Myrtle Room. 
You found the letter at the back of the picture, Rosamond? 
And yet that was a likely place to hide it in. Nobody had 
ever found the picture. Why should anybody find the let- 
ter that was in it ?” 

“ Let me get a light, mother ! I am sure you would like 
to have a light !” 

“No; no light now. Give the darkness time to gather 
down there in the corner of the room. Lift me up close to 
you, and let me whisper.” 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


297 


The clinging arm tightened its grasp as Rosamond raised 
her in the bed. The fading light from the window fell 
full on her face, and was reflected dimly in her vacant 
eyes. 

“ I am waiting for something that comes at dusk, before 
the candles are lighted,” she whispered in low, breathless 
tones. “My mistress!— down there!” And she pointed 
away to the furthest corner of the room near the door. 

“Mother! for God’s sake, what is it? what has changed 
you so?” 

“ That’s right ! say ‘ mother.’ If she does come, she can’t 
stop when she hears you call me ‘mother,’ when she sees 
us together at last, loving and knowing each other in spite 
of her. Oh, my kind, tender, pitying child ! if you can 
only deliver me from her, how long may I live yet ! — how 
happy we may both be !” 

“Don’t talk so! don’t look so! Tell me quietly— dear, 
dear mother, tell me quietly ” 

“Hush! hush! I am going to tell you. She threatened 
me on her death-bed, if I thwarted her — she said she would 
come to me from the other world. Rosamond ! I have 
thwarted her, and she has kept her promise— all my life 
since, she has kept her promise. Look ! Down there !” 

Her left arm was still clasped round Rosamond’s neck. 
She stretched her right arm out toward the far corner of 
the room, and shook her hand slowly at the empty air. 

“ Look!” she said. “ There she is as she always comes 
to me at the close of day — with the coarse, black dress on, 
that my guilty hands made for her — with the smile that 
there was on her face when she asked me if she looked like 
a servant. Mistress, mistress ! Oh, rest at last ! the Secret 
is ours no longer ! Rest at last ; my child is my own again ! 
Rest, at last ; and come between us no more !” 

She ceased, panting for breath; and laid her hot, throb- 
bing cheek against the cheek of her daughter. “ Call me 
‘ mother ’ again !” she whispered. Say it loud ; and send 
her away from me forever !” 

Rosamond mastered the terror that shook her in every 
limb, and pronounced the word. 

Her mother leaned forward a little, still gasping heavily 
for breath, and looked with straining eyes into the quiet 
twilight dimness at the lower end of the room. 

''Gone ! ! she cried, suddenly, with a scream of exul- 
tation. “ Oh, merciful, merciful God! gone at last!” 

The next instant she sprung up on her knees in the bed. 
For one awful moment her eyes shone in the gray twilight 
with a radiant, unearthly beauty, as they fastened their*' 
last look of fondness on her daughter’s face. “Oh, my 
love! my angel!” she murmured, “ how happy we shall be 


298 


THE DEAD SECRET 


together now !” As she said the words, she twined her 
arms round Kosamond’s neck, and pressed her lips raptur- 
ously on the lips of her child. 

The kiss lingered till her head sunk forward gently on 
Kosamond’s bosom— lingered, till the time of God’s mercy 
came, and the weary heart rested at last. 


CHAPTER V. 

FORTY THOUSAND POUNDS. 

No popular saying is more commonly accepted than the 
maxim which asserts that time is the great consoler ; and, 
probably, no popular saying more imperfectly expresses the 
truth. The work that we must do, the responsibilities that 
we must undertake, the example that we must set to others 
— these are the great consolers, for these apply the first 
remedies to the malady of grief. Time possesses nothing 
but the negative virtue of helping it to wear itself out. 
Who that has observed at all, has not perceived that those 
among us who soonest recover from the shock of a great 
grief for the dead are those who have the most duties to 
perform toward the living? When the shadow of calamity 
rests on our houses, the question with us is not how much 
time will suffice to bring back the sunshine to us again, but 
how much occupation have we got to force us forward into 
the place where the sunshine is waiting for us to come? 
Time may claim many victories, but not the victory over 
grief. The great consolation for the loss of the dead who 
are gone is to be found in the great necessity of thinking 
of the living who remain. / 

The histoiy of Rvosamond’s daily life, now that the dark- 
ness of a heavy affliction had fallen on it, was in itself the 
sufficient illustration of this truth. It was not the slow 
lapse of time that helped to raise her up again, but the ne- 
cessity which would not wait for time— the necessity which 
made her remember what was due to the husband who sor- 
rowed with her, to the child whose young life was linked 
to hers, and to the old man whose helpless grief found no 
support but in the comfort she could give, learned no les- 
son of resignation but from the example she could set. 

From the first the responsibility of sustaining him had 
rested on her shoulders alone. Before the close of day had 
been counted out by the first hour of the night, she had 
been torn from the bedside by the necessity of meeting him 
at the door, and preparing him to know that he was enter 
ing the chamber of death. To guide the dreadful truth 
gradually and gently, till it stood face to face with him, to 
support him under the shock of recognizing it, to help his 
mind to recover after the inevitable blow had struck it at 


THE DEAD SECRET 


299 


last — these were the sacred duties which claimed all the 
devotion that Rosamond had to give, and which forbade 
her heart, for his sake, to dwell selfishly on its own grief. 

He looked like a man whose faculties had been stunned 
past recovery. He would sit for hours with the musical 
box by his side, patting it absently from time to time, and 
whispering to himself as he looked at it, but never attempt- 
ing to set it playing. It was the one memorial left that 
reminded him of all the joys and sorrows, the simple fam- 
ily interests and affections of his past life. When Rosa- 
mond first sat by his side and took his hand to comfort him, 
he looked backward and forward with forlorn eyes from 
her compassionate face to the musical box, and vacantly 
repeated to himself the same words over and over again : 
“ They are all gone — my brother Max, my wife, my little 
Joseph, my sister Agatha, and Sarah, my niece! I and 
my little bit of box are left alone together in the world. 
Mozart can sing no more. He has sung to the last of them 
now 1” 

The second day there was no change in him. On the 
third, Rosamond placed the book of Hymns reverently on 
her mother’s bosom, laid a lock of her own hair round it, 
and kissed the sad, peaceful face for the last time. 

The old man was v/ith her at that silent leave-taking, 
and followed her away when it was over. By the side of 
the coffin, and afterward, when she took him back with 
lier to her husband, he was still sunk in the same apathy 
of grief which had overwhelmed him from the first. But 
when they began to speak of the removal of the remains 
the next day to Porthgenna churchyard, they noticed that 
his dim eyes brightened suddenly, and that his wandering 
attention followed every word they said. After awhile he 
rose from his chair, approached Rosamond, and looked 
anxiously in her face. I think I could bear it better if 
you would let me go with her,” he said. “We two should 
have gone back to Cornwall together, if she had lived. 
Will you let us still go back together now that she has 
died?” 

Rosamond gently remonstrated, and tried to make him 
see that it was best to leave the remains to be removed 
under the charge of her husband’s servant, whose fidelity 
could be depended on, and whose position made him the 
fittest person to be charged with cares and responsibilities 
which near relations were not capable of undertaking with 
sufficient composure. She told him that her husband in 
tended to stop in London, to give her one day of rest ar^ 
quiet, which she absolutely needed, and that they thdn 
proposed to return to Cornwall in time to be at Porthgenna 
before the funeral took place; and she begged earnestly 


300 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


that he would not think of separating his lot from theirs at 
a time of trouble and trial, when they ought to be all three 
most closely united bj^ the ties of mutual sympathy and 
mutual sorrow. 

He listened silently and submissively while Eosamond 
was speaking, but he only repeated his simple petition 
when she had done. The one idea in his mind now was 
the idea of going back to Cornwall with all that was left 
on earth of his sister’s child. Leonard and Rosamond both 
saw that it would be useless to oppose it, both felt that it 
would be cruelty to keep him with them, and kindness to 
let him go away. Aftel' privately charging the servant 
to spare him all trouble and difficulty, to humor him by 
acceding to any wishes that he might express, and to give 
him all possible protection and help without obtruding 
either officiously on his attention, they left him free to 
follow the one purpose of his heart which still connected 
him with the interests and events of the the passing day. 
“ I shall thank you better soon,” he said, at leave taking, 
“ for letting me go away out of this din of London with 
all that is left to me of Sarah, my niece. 1 will dry up my 
tears as well as I can, and try to have more courage when 
we meet again. ” 

On the next day, when they were alone, Eosamond and 
her husband sought refuge from the oppression of the 
present in speaking together of the future, and of the in- 
fluence which the change in their fortunes ought to be al- 
lowed to exercise on their plans and projects for the time to 
come. After exhausting this topic, tlie conversation turned 
next on the subject of their friends, and on the necessity 
of communicating to some of the oldest of their associates 
the events which had followed the discovery in the Myrtle 
Room. 

The first name on their lips while they were considering 
this question was the name of Dr. Chennery; and Rosa- 
mond, dreading the effect on her spirits of allowing her 
mind to remain unoccupied, volunteered to write to the 
vicar at once, referring briefly to what had happened since 
they had last communicated with him, and asking him to 
fulfill tliat year an engagement of long standing, which he 
had made with her husband and herself, to spend his 
autumn holiday with them at Porthgenna Tower. Rosa- 
mond’s heart yearned for a sight of her old friend ; and 
she knew him well enough to be assured that a hint at the 
affliction which had befallen her, and at the hard trial 
which she had undergone, would be more than enough to 
filing them together the moment Dr. Chennery could make 
his arrangements for leaving home. 

The writing of this letter suggested recollections which 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


301 


Called to mind another friend, whose intimacy with Leon- 
ard and Rosamond was of recent date, but whose connec- 
tion with the earlier among the train of circumstances 
which had led to the discovery of the secret entitled him to 
a certain share in their confidence. This friend was Mr. 
Orridge, the doctor at West Winston, who had accidentally 
been the means of bringing Rosamond’s mother to her bed 
side. To him she now wrote, acknowledging the promise 
which she had madeon leaving West Winston to communi- 
cate the result of their search for the Myrtle Room ; and 
informing him that it had terminated in the discovery of 
some very sad events, of a family nature, which were now 
numbered with the events of the past. More than this it 
was not necessary to say to a friend who occupied such a 
position toward them as that held by Mr. Orridge. 

Rosamond had written the address of this second letter, 
and was absently drawing lines on the blotting-paper with 
her pen, when she was startled by hearing a contention of 
angry voices in the passage outside. Almost before she 
had time to wonder what the noise meant, the door was 
violently pushed open, and a tall, shabbily dressed, elderly 
man, with a peevish, haggard face, and a ragged gray 
beard stalked in, followed indignantly by the head- waiter 
of the hotel. 

“ I have three times told this person,” began the waiter, 
with a strong emphasis on the word ‘‘ person,” “ that Mr. 
and Mrs. Frankland ” 

“Were not at home,” broke in the shabbily dressed 
man, finishing the sentence for the waiter. “Yes, you 
told me that; and I told you that the gift of speech was 
only used by mankind for the purpose of telling lies, and 
that consequently I didn’t believe you. You have told a lie. 
Here are Mr. and Mrs. Frankland both at hon^e. I come 
on business, anil I mean to have five minutes' talk with 
them. I sit down unasked, and I announce my own name 
—Andrew Treverton.” 

With those words, he took his seat coolly on the nearest 
chair. Leonard’s cheeks reddened with anger while he was 
speaking, but Rosamond interposed before her husband 
could say a word. 

“ It is useless, love, to be angry with him,” she whis- 
pered. “ The quiet way is the best way with a man like 
that.’' She made a sign to the waiter, which gave him per- 
mission to leave the room— then turned to Mr. Treverton. 
“ You have forced your presence on us, sir,” she said 
quietly, “at a time when a very sad affliction makes us 
quite unfit for contentions of any kind. We are willing to 
show more consideration for your age than you have shown 
for our grief. If you have anything to say to my husband, 


m THE DEAD SECDET, 

he is ready to control himself and to hear you quietly, for 
my sake.” 

“And I shall be short with him and with you, for my 
own sake,” rejoined Mr. Treverton. “ No woman has ever 
yet had the chance of sharpening her tongue long on me, or 
ever shall, I have come here to say three things. First, 
your lawyer has told me all about the discovery in the 
Myrtle Eoom, and how you made it. Secondly, I have got 
your money. Thirdly, I mean to keep it. What do you 
think of that?” 

“I think you need not give yourself the trouble of re- 
maining in the room any longer, if your only object in 
coming here is to tell us what we know already,” replied 
Leonard. “We know you have got the money; and we 
never doubted that you meant to keep it.” 

“ You are quite sure of that, I suppose ?” said Mr. Trev- 
erton. “ Quite sure you have no lingering hope that any 
future twists and turns of the law will take the money out 
of my pocket again and put it back into yours? It is only 
fair to tell you that there is not the shadow of a chance of 
any such thing ever happening, or of my ever turning gen- 
erous and rewarding you of my own accord for the sacrifice 
you have made. I have been to Doctors’ Commons, I have 
taken out a grant of administration, I have got the money 
legally, I have lodged it safe at my banker’s, and I have 
never had one kind feeling in my heart since I was born. 
That was my brother’s character of me, and he knew more 
of my disposition, of course, than any one else. Once 
again, I tell you both, not a farthing of all that large fort- 
une will ever )’eturn to either of you.” 

“And once again I tell said Leonard, “that we 

have no desire to hear what we know already. It is a re- 
lief to my conscience and to my wife’s to have resigned a 
fortune which we had no right to possess ; and I speak for 
her as well as for myself when I tell you that your attempt 
to attach an interested motive to our renunciation of that 
money is an insult to us both which you ought to have 
been ashamed to offer.” 

“ That is your opinion, is it?” said Mr. Treverton. 
“You, who have lost the money, speak to me, who have 
got it, in that manner, do you? Pray, do you approve of 
your husband’s treating a rich man who might make both 
your fortunes in that way?” he inquired, addressing him- 
self sharply to Rosamond. 

“Most assuredly I approve of it,” she answered. “I 
never agreed with him more heartily in my life than 
I agree with him now.” 

“ Oh !” said Mr. Treverton. “ Then it seems you care no 
more for the loss of the money than he does?” 


THE BEAD SECRET. 


308 


“He has told you already,” said Eosamond, “ that it is 
as great a relief to my conscience as to his, to have given 
it up.” 

Mr. Treverton carefully placed a thick stick which he 
carried with him upright between his knees, crossed his 
hands on the top of it, rested his chin on them, and, in 
that investigating position, stared steadily in Eosamond’s 
face. 

“ I rather wish I had brought Shrowl here with me,” he 
said, to himself. “ I should like him to have seen this. It 
staggers me, and I rather think it would have staggered 
him. Both these people,” continued Mr. Treverton, look- 
ing perplexedly from Eosamond to Leonard, and from Leon- 
ard back again to Eosamond, “are, to all outward ap- 
pearance, human beings. They walk on their hind legs, 
tliey express ideas readily by uttering articulate sounds, 
they have the usual allowance of features, and in respect 
of weight, height, and size, they appear to me to be mere 
average human creatures of the* regular civilized sort. 
And yet, there they sit, taking the loss of a fortune of 
forty thousand pounds as easily as Croesus, King of Lydia, 
niight have taken the loss of a half-penny!” 

He rose, put on his liat, tucked the thick stick under his 
arm, and advanced a few steps toward Eosamond. 

“ I am going now,” he said. “ Would you like to shake 
hands?” 

Eosamond turned her back on him contemptuously. 

Mr. Treverton chuckled with an air of supreme satisfac- 
tion. 

Meanwhile Leonard, who sat near the fireplace, and 
whose color was rising angrily once more, had been feeling 
for the bell-rope, and had just succeeded in getting it into 
his hand as Mr. Treverton approached the door. 

“ Don’t ring, Lenny,” said Eosamond. “ He is going of 
liis own accord.” 

Mr. Treverton stepped out into the passage — then 
glanced back into the room with an expression of puzzled 
curiosity on his face, as if he was looking into a cage which 
contained two animals of a species that he had never heard 
of before. “ I have seen some strange sights in my time,” 
lie said to himself. “ I have had some queer experience of 
this trumpery little planet, and of the creatures who in- 
habit it— but*^ I never was staggered yet by any human 
phenomenon as I am staggered now by those two.” He 
shut the door without saying another word, and Eosamond 
heard him chuckle to himself again as he walked away 
along the passage. 

Ten minutes afterward the waiter brought up a sealed 
letter addressed to Mrs. Frankland. It had been written, 


m 


^HE DEAD SECRET. 


he said, in the coffee-room of the hotel by the “person’’ 
who had intruded himself into Mr. and Mrs. Franklaiid’s 
presence. After giving it to the waiter to deliver, he had 
gone away in a hurry, swinging his thick stick compla- 
cently, and laughing to himself. 

Rosamond opened the letter. 

On one side of it was a crossed check, drawn in her 
name, for forty thousand pounds. 

On the other side were these lines of explanation : 

“ Take your money back again. First, because you and 
your husband are the only two people I have ever met with 
who are not likely to be made rascals by being made rich. 
Secondly, because you have told the truth, when letting it 
out meant losing money, and keeping it in, saving a fort- 
une. Thirdly, because you are not the child of the player- 
woman. Fourthly, because you can’t help yourself— for I 
shall leave it to you at my death, if you won’t have it now. 
Good-bye. Don’t come and see me, don’t write grateful 
letters to me, don’t invite me into the country, don’t praise 
my generosity, and, above all things, don’t have anything 
more to do with Shrowl. 

“Andrew Treverton.” 

The first thing Rosamond did, when she and her hus- 
band had a little recovered from their astonishment, was 
to disobey the injunction which forbade her to address any 
grateful letters to Mr. Treverton. The messenger, who 
was sent with her note to Bays water, returned without an 
answer, and reported that he had received directions from 
an invisible man, with a gruff voice, to throw it over the 
garden wall, and to go away immediately after, unkjss he 
wanted to have his head broken. 

Mr. Nixon, to whom Leonard immediately sent word of 
what had happened, volunteered to go to Bayswater the 
same evening, and make an attempt to see Mr. Treverton 
on Mr. and Mrs. Frankland’s behalf. He found Timon of 
London more approachable than he had anticipated. The 
misanthrope was, for once in his life, in a good- humor. 
This extraordinary change in him had been produced by 
the sense of satisfaction which he experienced in having 
just turned Shrowl out of bis situation, on the ground that 
his master was not fit company for him after having com- 
mitted such an act of folly as giving Mrs. Frankland back 
her forty thousand pounds. 

“ I told him,” said Mr. Treverton, chuckling over his 
recollection of the parting scene between his servant and 
himself— “ I told him that I could not possibly expect to 
merit his continued approval after what I had done, and 
that I could not think of detaining him in his place under 


THE DEAD SECRET. 


305 


the circumstances. I begged him to view my conduct as 
leniently as he could, because the first cause that led to it 
was, after all, his copying the plan of Porthgenna, which 
guided Mrs. Frankland to the discovery in the Myrtle 
Room. I congratulated him on having got a reward of 
five pounds for being the means of restoring a fortune of 
forty thousand ; and I bowed him out with a polite humility 
that half drove him mad. Shrowl and I have had a good 
many tussels in our time; he was always even with me till 
to-day, and now I’ve thrown him on his back at last.” 

Although Mr. Treverton was willing to talk of the de- 
feat and dismissal of Shrowl as long as the lawyer would 
listen to him, he was perfectly iminanageable on the subject 
of Mrs. Prankland, when Mr. Nixon tried to turn the con- 
versation to that topic. He would hear no messages— he 
would give no promise of any sort for the future. All that 
he could be prevailed on to say about himself and his own 
projects was that he intended to give up the house at Bays- 
water, and to travel again for the purpose of studying hu- 
man nature, in different countries, on a plan that he had 
not tried yet— the plan of endeavoring to find out the good 
that there might be in people as well as the bad. He said 
the idea had been suggested to his mind by his anxiety to 
ascertain whether Mr. and Mrs. Frankland were perfectly 
exceptional human beings or not. At present he was dis- 
posed to think that they were, and that his travels were 
not likely to lead to anything at all remarkable in the 
shape of a satisfactory result. Mr. Nixon pleaded hard for 
something in the shape of a friendly message to take back, 
along with the news of his intended departure. The re- 
quest produced nothing but a sardonic chuckle, followed 
by this parting speech, delivered to the lawyer at the gar- 
den-gate. 

“Tell those two superlminan people,” said Timon of 
London, “ that I may give up my ti’avels in disgust when 
they least expect it ; and that I may possibly come back to 
look at them again— I don’t personally care about either of 
them — but I should like to get one satisfactory sensation 
more out of the lamentable spectacle of humanity before I 
die.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

THF DAWN OF A NEW LIFE. 

Four days afterward, Rosamond and Leonard and Uncle 
Joseph met together in the cemetery of the church of 
Porthgenna. 

The earth to which we all return had closed over her : 
the weary pilgrimage of Sarah Leeson had come to its quiet 


306 


THE DEAD SECRET 


end at last. The miner’s gravfj from which she had twice 
plucked in secret her few memorial fragments of grass had 
given her the home, in death, which, in life, she had never 
known. The roar of the surf was stilled to a low murmur 
before it reached the place of her rest; and the wind that 
swept joyously over the open moor paused a little when it 
met the old trees that watched over the graves, and wound 
onward softly through the myrtle hedge which held them 
all embraced alike in its circle of lustrous green. 

Some hours had passed since the last words of the burial 
service had been read. The fresh turf was heaped already 
over the mound, and the old head-stone with the miner’s 
epitaph on it had been raised once more in its former place 
at the head of the grave. Rosamond was reading the in- 
scription softly to her husband. Uncle Joseph had walked 
a little apart from them while she was thus engaged, and 
had knelt down by himself at the foot of the mound. He 
was fondly smoothing and patting the newly laid turf — as 
he had often smoothed Sai*ah’s hair in the long-past days 
of her youth— as he had often patted her hand in the 
after-time, when her heart was weary and her hair was 
gray. 

“Shall we add any new words to the old, worn letters 
as they stand now?’’ said Rosamond, when she had read 
the inscription to the end. “There is a blank space left 
on the stone. Shall we fill it, love, with the initials of my 
mother’s name, and the date of her death? I feel some- 
thing in my heart which seems to tell me to do that, and 
to do no more.” 

“So let it be, Rosamond,” said her husband. “That 
short and simple inscription is the fittest and the best.” 

She looked away, as he gave that answer, to the foot of 
the grave, and left him for a moment to approach the old 
man. “ Take my hand, Uncle Joseph,” she said, and 
touched him gently on the shoulder. “Take my hand, 
and let us go back together to the house.” 

He rose as she spoke, and looked at her doubtfully. The 
musical box, inclosed in its well-worn leather case, lay on 
the grave near the place where he had been kneeling. 
Rosamond took it up from the grass, and slung it in the 
old place at his side, which it had always occupied when 
he was away from home. He sighed a little as he thanked 
her. “ Mozart can sing no more,” he said. “ He has 
sung to the last of them now !” 

“ Don’t say 'to the last,’ yet,” said Rosamond— “ don’t 
say ‘to the last,’ Uncle Joseph, while I am alive. Surely 
Mozart will sing tome, for my mother’s sake?” 

A smile — the first she had seen since the time of their 
grief — trembled faintly round his lips, “ There is comfort 


THE DEAD SECRET, 


807 


in that,” he said; “there is comfort for Uncle Joseph 
still, in hearing that.” 

“Take my hand,” she repeated softly. “Come home 
with us now.” 

He looked down wistfully at the grave. “I will follow 
you,” he said, “ if you will go on before me to the gate.” 
, Rosamond took her husband’s arm, and guided him to 
the path that led out of the churchyard. As they passed 
from sight. Uncle Joseph knelt down once more at the foot 
of tlie grave, and pressed his lips on the fresh turf. 

“ Good-bye my child,” he whispered, and laid his cheek 
for a moment against the grass before he arose again. 

At the gate, Rosamond was waiting for him. Her right 
hand was resting on her husband’s arm ; her left hand was 
held out for Uncle Joseph to take. 

“ How cool the breeze is!” said Leonard. “ How pleas- 
antly the sea sounds! Surely this is a fine summer day?” 

“ The calmest and loveliest of the year,” said Rosamond. 

“ The only clouds on the sky are clouds of shining white; 
the only shadov/s over the moor lie light as down on the 
heather. Oh, Lenny, it is such a different day from that 
day of dull oppression and misty heat when we found the 
letter in the Myrtle Room! Even the dark tower of our 
old house yonder looks its brightest and best, as if it waited 
to welcome us to the beginning of a new life. I will make 
it a happy life to you, and to Uncle Joseph, if I can— happy 
as the sunshine we are walking in now. You shall never 
repent, love, if I can help it, that you have married a wife 
who has no claim of her own to the honors of a family 
name.” 

“ I can never repent my marriage, Rosamond, because 
I can never forget the lesson that my wife has taught 
me.” 

“ What lesson, Lenny ?” 

“ An old one, my dear, which some of us can never learn 
too often. The highest honors, Rosamond, are those 
which no accident can take away — the honors that are 
conferred by Love and Truth.” 


[THE END.] 


1 



m&nj a family iiaa been xaised by the genuine pbil&iitr(q;>b^ oi 
modem progress and of modem opportunities. But many people ^ 
not a^aii of them. They jog along in their old ways until tbar an 
stuck fast in a mire of hopeless dnrt. Friends desert them^ fosE^they 
have already deserted themselves by neglecting their own best interesta 
Oat of the dirt of Mtehen, or hall or parlor, any house can be quickly 
teoaght by the naeofSapolio which is sold by aU grocers at lOo; a cake* 

SOCIAL SOLUTIONS 

{Soluizons Societies), 

By M. a- OB IN, 

aT tTvs Familisth* at Guise; ProminerU Leaxler of Inauatrtes 1» 
France and Belgium; Member of the National AssemBly, 

TRANSLATE FROM THE FRENCH BY 
MAUTTC HOWLAND. 


i vol., l2mo, illustrated, cloth gilt, $1.50. 

An admirable Engll«di translation of M. Grodin’s statement of the 
course of study which led him to conceive the Scicial Palace at Guise, 
France. There is no question that this publication will maik an era 
in the growth of the labor question. It should serve a» the manual for 
organized labor in its present contest, since its teachings will as surely 
lead to the destruction of the wages system as the abolition mtjvcment 
lead to that of chattel slavery. 


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618 Dick’s Sweetheart ; or, O Tender 

Dolores ” 20 

621 A Maiden all Forlorn 10 

624 A Passive Crime 10 

721 Lady Branksmere 20 

735 A Mental Struggle 26 

737 The Haunted Chamber 10 

792 Her'Week’s Amusement 10 

802 Lady Val worth's Diamonds 20 

BY LORD DUFFERIN 

95 Letters from High Latitudes 20 

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

761 Count of Monte Cristo, Part I. . . . . 26 
761 Count of Monte Cristo, Part II. ... 20 

775 The Three Guardsmen 20 

786 Twenty Years After 20 

BY GEORGE ELIOT 

56 Adam Bede, 2 Parts, each 15 

69 Amos Barton 10 

71 Silas Marner 10 

79 Romola, 2 Parts, each 15 

149 Janet’s Repentance 10 

151 Felix Holt 20 

174 Mid diem arch, 2 Parts, each 20 

195 Daniel Deronda, 2 Parts, each 20 

202 Theophrastus Such 10 

205 The Spanish Gypsy,and other Poems20 

207 The Mill on the Floss, 2 Parts, each. 15 

208 Brother Jacob, etc 10 

374 Essays, and Leaves from a Note- 

Book 20 


LOVELLS LIBBAKT 


BY MRS. ANNIE EBWARDES 


681 A Girton Girl 20 

BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS 

203 Disarmed 15 

603 The Flower of Doom 10 

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

373 Essays 20 

ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. 
EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY 

}>48 Banyan, by J. A. Froude 10 

407 Burke, by John Morley 10 

334 Burns, by Principal Shairp 10 

347 Byron, by Professor Nichol 10 

413 Chaucer, by Prof. A. W. Ward 10 

424 Cowper, by Gold win Smith 10 

377 Defoe, by William Minto 10 

388 Gibbon, by J. C. Morison 10 

225 Goldsmith, by William Black 10 

369 Hume, by Professor Huxley 10 

401 Johnson, by Leslie Stephen .10 

380 Locke, by Thomas Fowler 10 

392 Milton, by Mark Pattison 10 

398 Pope, by Leslie Stephen 10 

364 Scott, by R. H. Hutton 10 

361 3hsl!ey. by J. Symonds 10 

404 Southey, by Professor Dowden 10 

481 Spencer, by the Dean of St. Paul’s. .10 

344 Thackeray, by Anthony Trollope. ..10 

410 Wordsworth, by F. Myers 10 

BY B. L. FARJEON 

243 Gautran ; or. House of White Shad- 
ows 20 

054 Love’s Harvest 20 

856 Golden Bells 10 

874 Nine of Hearts 20 

BY HARRIET FARLEY 

473 Christmas Stories 20 

BY F. W. FARRAR, D.D. 

1 9 Seekers after God 20 

50 Early Days of Christianity, 2 Parts, 

each 20 

BY OCTAVE FEUILLET 

41 A Man-iage in High Life 20 

BY MRS. FORRESTER 

760 Fair Women 20 

818 Once Again 20 

843 My Lord and My Lady 20 

844 Dolores 20 

850 Mv Hero 20 

859 Viva 20 

860 Omnia Vanitas 10 

8j 1 Diana Carew 20 

862 From Olympus to Hades 20 

863 Rhona 20 

864 Rov and Viola ^ 

865 June 20 

866 Mignon 20 

867 A Young Man’s Fancy 20 


BY FRIEDRICH, BARON DE LA 


MOTTE FOUQUE 

711 Undine ...10 

BY THOMAS FOWLER 

380 Life of Locke 10 

BY FRANCESCA 

177 The Story of Ida 10 

BY R. E. FRANCILLON 

319 A Real Queen 20 

8,56 Golden Bells .10 

BY ALBERT FRANKLYN 

122 Ameline de Bourg 15 

BY L. VIRGINIA FRENCH 

485 My Roses ,20 

BY J. A. FROUDE 

348 Life of Bunyan 10 

BY EMILE GABORIAU 

114 Monsieur Lecoq, 2 Parts, each 20 

116 The Lerouge Case 20 

120 Other People’s Money 20 

1 29 In Peril of His Life 20 

138 The Gilded Clique 20 

155 Mystery of Orcival 20 

161 Promise of Marriage 10 

258 File No. 113 ...20 

BY HENRY GEORGE 

52 Progress and Poverty 20 

390 The Land Question 10 

393 Social Problems 20 

796 Property in Land 15 

BY CHARLES GIBBON 

57 The Golden Shaft 20 

BY J. W. VON GOETHE 

342 Goethe's Faust 20 

343 Goethe's Poems 20 

BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

51 Vicar of Wakefield 10 

362 Plays and Poems 20 

BY MRS. GORE 

89 The Dean’s Daughter 20 

BY JAMES GRANT 

49 The Secret Despatch 20 

BY CECIL GRIFFITH 

732 Victory Deane 20 

BY ARTHUR GRIFFITHS 

709 No. 99 10 

THE BROTHERS GRIMM 

221 Fairy Tale.s, Illustrated 20 

BY LIEUT. J. W. GUNNISON 

440 History of the Mormons 15 

BY MARION HARLAND 

107 Housekeeping and Homemaking.. . .15 

BY ERNST HAECKEL 

.,!^dia and Ceylon 20 


LOVELL'3 L^i^KARY 


BY jBbiiN McCarthy, m.p. 


278 Maid of Athens 20 

BY T. L. MEADE 

828 How It All Came Bound 20 

BY OWEN MEREDITH 

331 Lucile 20 

BY JOHN MILTON 

389 Paradise Lost 20 

BY WILLIAM MINTO 

377 Life of Defoe 10 

BY THOMAS MOORE 

•116 LallaRookh ..,.20 

•4.'^7 Poeuis 40 

BY J. C. MORRISON 

£83 Life of Gibbon .10 

BY JOHN MORLEY 

407 Life of Burke 10 

BY EDWARD H. MOTT 

139 Pike County Folks 20 

BY ALAN MUIR 

312 Golden Girls 20 

BY MAX MULLER 

130 India ; What Can Ii Teach ? 20 

BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 

197 By the Gate of the Sea 15 

758 Cynic Fortune 10 

BY F. MYERS 

410 Life of Wordsworth 10 

BY MISS MULOCK 

33 John Halifax 20 

435 Miss Tommy 15 

751 King Arthur 20 

BY FLORENCE NEELY 

564 Hand-Book for the Kitchen 20 


BY REV. R. H. NEWTON 

83 Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible . - 20 

BY JOHN NICHOL 


347 Life of Byron 10 

BY JAMES R. NICHOLS, M.D. 

375 Science at Home 20 

BY W. E. NORRIS 

108 No New Thing 20 

592 That Terrible Man 10 

779 My Friend J im lO 

BY CHRISTOPHER NORTH 

439 N octes Ambrosianm 30 

BY LAURENCE OLIPHANT 

1Q6 Altiora Peto, 30 


BY MRS. OLIPHANT 

124 The Ladies Lindores 20 

*79 The Little Pilgrim 10 

175 Sir Tom 20 

326 The Wizard’s Son 25 

368 Old Lady Mary 10 

602 Oliver’s Bride 10 

717 A Country Gentleman 20 

831 The Son of his Father 2C 

BY OUIDA 

112 Wanda, 2 Parts, each 15 

127 Under Two Flags, 2 Parts, each 20 

387 Princess Napraxine 25 

675 A Rainy June 10 

763 Moths 20 

790 Othmar 20 

805 A House Party •*i,--^0 

852 Friendship 20 

853 In Maremma 20 

854 Signa 20 

855 Pascarel 20 

BY MAX O’RELL 

336 John Bull and His Island .20 

459 John Bull and His Daughters 20 

BY ALBERT K. OWEN 

655 Integral Co-operation 30 

BY LOUISA PARR 

42 Robin 20 

BY MARK PATTISON 

392 Life of Milton 10 

BY JAMES PAYN 

187 Thicker than Water 20 

330 The Canon’s Ward 20 

659 Luck of the Darrells 20 

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE 

403 Poems 20 

426 Narrative of A. Gordon Pym 15 

432 Gold Bug, and Other Tales 15 

438 The Assignation and Other Tales . . 15 

447 The Murders in the Rue Morgue If 

BY WILLIAM POLE, F.R.S. 

406 The Theory of the Modern Scien- 
tific Game of Whist 15 

BY ALEXANDER POPE 

391 Homer’s Odyssey 20 

396 Homer’s Iliad 30 

457 Poems 30 

BY JANE PORTER 

189 Scottish Chiefs, Part 1 20 

Scottish Chiefs, Part II .20 

382 Thaddeus of Warsaw 25 

BY C. F. POST AND FRED. G. 
LEUBUGHER 

838 The George-IIcwitt Campaign 20 

BY ADELAIDE A. PSOCTES 

^9 Foeias 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY 


®20 Shane Fadh’sWedtling,by Carleton.20 

821 Larry McFarland’s Wake, by Wil- 

liam Carleton 10 

822 The Party Fight and Funeral, by 

William Carleton 10 

823 The Midnight Mass, by Carleton, ..10 

824 Phil Purcel, by William Carleton, 10 

825 An Irish Oath, by Carleton 10 

826 Going to MaynooLh, by Carleton. . .10 

827 Phelim O’Toole’s Couinship, by 

William Carleton 10 

828 Dominick the Poor Scholar, by 

William Carleton 10 

820 Neal Malone, by William Carleton.. 10 

830 Twilight Club Tracts, by Wingate. 20 

831 The Son of Lis Father. by Oliphant. 20 

832 Sir Percival, by J. H. Shorthouse..l0 

a33 A Voyage to the Cape, by llussell. .20 
834 Jack’s Courtship, by Russell 20 

A Sailor's Sweetheart, by Russell.. 20 

836 On the Fo’k’sle Head, by Russell.. .20 

837 Marked ‘Tn Haste,” by Roosevelt. . 20 

838 The George- Hewitt Campaign 20 

839 The Guilty River, by Collins 10 

840 By Woman’s Wit, by Ale.xander. . . .2(1 

841 Dr. Cupid, by' Rhoda Broughton. ..20 

842 The World Went Very Well Then, 

by Walter Be.sant 20 

843 My Lord and My Lady, by Ivlrs. 

Forrester 20 

844 Dolores, by Mrs. Forrester .-20 

845 I Have Lived and Loved, by Mrs. 

Forrester *>0 

846 An Algonquin Maiden, by Adams.. 20 

847 Tiie Ho'y Rose, by Walter Bcsant.lO 

84S She, by H. Rider Haggard 20 

84!> Handy Andy, by Samuel Lover.... 20 

850 My Hero, by Mrs. Forrester 20 

851 Loriia Doone, by Blackmore,P’t I. . .20 

851 Lorna Doone, by Blackmore, P’tIL20 

852 Friendship, by Ouida 20 

854 Signa, by Ouida 20 

855 Pascarel, by Ouida .'*20 

856 Golden Beil.s, by B. L. Farjeon....l0 

857 A Wilful Young Woman 20 

858 A Modern Telemachus, by Yonge.20 

859 Viva, by Mrs. Forrester 20 

860 Ointiia Vanitas, by Mrs. Forrester.lO 

861 Diana Carew, by Mr.s. Forrester, 20 

862 From Olympus to Hades, by Mrs. 

Forrester 20 

863 Rhona, by Mrs. Forrester 20 

864 Roy and Viola, by Mrs. Forrester . . 20 

8()5 June, by Mrs. Forrester 20 

866 Mignon, Mrs. Forrester. *20 

867 A Young Man’s Fancy, by *M*rs. 

Forrester 20 

868 One Thing Needful, by Braddon 20 

869 Barbara, by M. E. Braddon 20 

870 John Marchmont’s Legacy, by *M. 

E. Braddon 20 

871 Joshua Haggard’s Daughter, by 

M. E. Braddon 20 

872 Taken at the Flood, by Braddon. 20 


IJSISXJEIS. 

873 Asphodel, by M. E. Braddon 20 

874 Nine of Hearts, by B. L. Farjeon!!20 

875 Little Tu’penny, by Baring-Gould.lO 

876 The Witch’s Head, by H. Rider 

^ Haggard 20 

877 The Doctor’s Wife, by Braddon.. . .20 

878 Only a Clod, by M. E. Braddon. . .' 20 

879 Sir Jasper’s Tenant, by Braddon. .20 

880 Lady’s Mile, by M. E. Braddon. . . 20 

881 Birds of Prey, by M. E. Braddon . .20 

882 Charlotte’s Inheritance, by M. E. 

Braddon ' ! . . 20 

883 Rupert Godwin, by M. E. Bra< don. 20 

884 The Son of Monte* Cristo, Part I. . 20 

884 The Son of Monte Ciisto, I'art 11.. 20 

885 Monte Cristo and hi.s Wile 20 

886 Strangers and Pilgrims, by M. E. 

Braddon 20 

887 A Strange World, by M. E. Bradcioin20 

888 Mount Royal, by M. E. Braddon... 20 

889 Just as I am, by M. E. Braddon.. . 20 

890 Dead Men’s Shoes, by Braddon.. 20 

891 The Countess of Monte Cristo, P’t. L20 

891 The Countess of Monte Cristc 

P’t. II ’20 

892 Hostages to Fortune, by M. *E. 

Braddon 20 

893 Fenton’s Quest, by M. E. Braddon. 20 

894 The Cloven Foot, by M. E. Braddon. 20 

895 Moonshine, by Frederic Allison 

Tapper 20 

896 Marjorie, by B. M. Clay. ..*..!!.*.*!. 20 

897 Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte. .. .20 

898 Joan Wentworth by Katherine S.20 

Macquoid 

899 Love and Life, by Yoiige 20 

900 Jess, by H, Rider Haggard . . . .20 

901 Charles Auchester, by E. Berger. ..20 

902 The Mystery, by Mrs. Henry Wood. 20 

903 3 he Master Passion, by Marryat. .20 

9U4 A Lucky Disappointment, by Flor- 
ence Marryat Rj 

905 Her Lord and Master, by Marrjat.20 

906 My Own Child, by Manyat 20 

907 No Intentions, by Florence Marry at. 20 

908 Written in Fire, by Marryat 20 

909 A Little Stepson, by Mai r\ at. ..10 

910 With Cupid's Eyes, by Marryat. . .20 

911 Not Like Other Girl^, by Rosa 

Nouchette Carey 20 

912 Robert Ord’s Atonement, by Rosa 

Nouchette Carey 20 

913 Griffith Gaunt, by Charles Reade...20 

914 A Terrible Temptation, by Reade..20 

915 Very Hard Cash, by Charles Rcade.20 

916 It is Never Too Late to Mend, by 

Charles Reade 20 

917 The Knightsbridge Mystery, by 

Charles Reade *10 

918 AW'oman Hater, by Charles Reade.20 

919 Readiana, by Chaidcs Reade. .. . 10 

920 J ohn : A Love Story, by Mrs. OU- 

Phant 20 

9.21 The Merry Meq, by Stevenson ... .20 

newsdealers, or will lif 


of Ihe above can be obtained from all booksellers ai 
sent free by mail, on receipt of price, by the publishers, 


JOIliSr W. LOVELL comTanv, 

Nob. 14 ANi> 16 Vesisy Street, New York. 





The treatment of many thousands of 
cases of those chronic weaknesses and 
distressing- ailments peculiar to females, 
at the Invalids’ Hotel and Surgical In- 
stitute, Buffalo, N. Y., has afforded a 
vast experience in nicely adapting and 
thoroughly testing remedies for the 
cure of woman’s peculiar maladies. 

Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescrip- 
tion is the outgrowth, or result, of this 
great and valuable experience. Thou- 
sands of testimonials received from pa- 
tients and from physicians who have 
tested it in the more aggravated and 
obstinate cases which had baffled their 
skill, prove it to be the most wonderful 
remedy ever devised for the relief and 
cure of suffering women. It is not re- 
commended as “cure-all,” but as a 
most perfect ripecitio for woman’s 
peculiar ailments. 

As a powerful, invigorating 
tonic it imparts strength to the whole 
system, and to the uterus, or womb and 
its appendages, in particular. For over- 
worked, “worn-out,” “run-down,” de- 
bilitated teachers, milliners, dressmak- 
ers, seamstresses, “shop-girls,” house- 
keepers, nursing mothers, and feeble 
women generally, D^. Pierce’s Favorite 
Prescription is the greatest earthly boon, 
being unequalled as an appetizing cor- 
dial and restorative tonic. It promotes 
digestion and assimilation of food, cures 
nausea, weakness of stomach, indiges- 
tion, bloating and eructations of gas. 

As a sootliiiig and streiigtlieii- 
ing nervine, “ Favorite Prescription ” 
is unequalled and is invaluable in allay- 
ing and subduing nervous excitability, 
irritability, exhaustion, prostration, hys- 
teria, spasms and other distressing, nerv- 
ous symptoms commonly attendant upon 
functional and organic disease of the 
womb. It induces refreshing sleep and 
relieves mental anxiety and despond- 
ency. 

Br. Pierce’s Favorite Prescrip- 
tion is a legitimate medicine, 

carefully compounded by an experienc- 
ed and skillful physician, and adapted 
to woman’s delicate organization. It is 
purely vegetable in its composition and 


perfectly harmless In its, effects in any 
condition of the system. 

‘‘Favorite Prescription” is a 
positive cure for the most compli- 
cated and obstinate cases of leucorrhea, 
or “ whites,” excessive flowing at month- 
ly periods, painful menstruation, unnat- 
ural suppressions, prolapsus or falling 
of the womb, weak back, “female weak- 
ness,” anteversion, retroversion, bearing- 
down sensations, chronic congestion, in- 
flammation and ulceration of the womb 
inflammation, pain and tenderness ij 
ovaries, accompanied with internal hea 

In pregnancy, “ Favorite Prescrip 
tion” is a “mother’s cordial,” relieving 
nausea, weakness of stomach and other 
distressing symptoms common to that 
condition. If its use is kept up in the 
latter months of gestation, it so prepares 
the system for delivery as to greatly 
lessen, and many times almost entirely 
do away with the sufferings of that try- 
ing ordeal. 

Favorite Prescription,” when 
taken in connection with the use of 
Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery, 
and small laxative doses of Dr. Pierce’s 
Purgative Pellets (Little Liver Pills), 
cures Liver, Kidney and Bladder dis- 
eases. Their combined use also removes 
blood taints, and abolishes cancerous 
and scrofulous humors from the sj'stem. 

Treating tlie Wrong Disease.— 
Many times women call on their family 
physicians, suffering, as they imagine, 
one from dyspepsia, another from heart 
disease, another from liver or kidney 
disease, another from nerve us exhaus- 
tion or prostration, another with pain 
here or there, and in this way they all 
present alike to themselves and their 
easy-going and indifferent, or over-busy 
doctor, separate and distinct diseases, 
for which he prescribes his pills and 
potions, assuming them to be such, 
when, in reality, they are all only sywp- 
tnms caused by. some womb disorder. 
The physician, ignorant of the cause of 
suffering, encourages his practice until 
large bills are made. The suffering pa- 
tient gets no better, but probably worse 
by reason of the delay, wrong treatment 
and consequent complications. A prop- 
er medicine, like Dr. Piei ce’s Favorite 
Prescription, directed to the cause would 
have entirely removed the disease, there- 
by dispelling all those distressing symp- 
toms, and instituting comfort instead of 
prolonged misery. 

“Favorite Prescription” is the 
onlj’’ medicine for women sold, by drug- 
gists, under a positive guarantee, 
from the manufacturers, that it will 
give satisfaction in every case, or money 
will be refunded. This guarantee has 
been printed on the bottle-wrapper, and 
faithfully carried out for many years. 
Farge bottles (100 doses) $1.00. or 
six bottles for $5.00. 

II^“ Send ten cents in stamps for Dr. 
Pierce’s large, illustrated Treatise (160 
pages) on Diseases of Women. Address, 
World’s Dispensary Medical Associationi 
No. 668 Main Street. BUFFALOy JV, i; 



lOOyears established as the cleanest and best preparation for SHAVING, it 
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.nd cmforuble. SOAP & CASE 1 / 


■DT7 ATPQ’ QO ATI> Great English Complexion Soap, is sold 

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